Context Compression Strategies

When agent sessions generate millions of tokens, compression becomes mandatory. Optimize for tokens-per-task (total tokens to complete a task), not tokens-per-request.

Compression Approaches

1. Anchored Iterative Summarization (Recommended)

• Maintain structured summaries with explicit sections
• On compression, summarize only newly-truncated content
• Merge with existing summary instead of regenerating
• Structure forces preservation of critical info

2. Opaque Compression

• Highest compression ratios (99%+)
• Sacrifices interpretability
• Cannot verify what was preserved