hydraflow: Skill for Claude Code

.codex/skills/strategic-compact/SKILL.md

strategic-compact is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from T-rav/hydraflow. It costs 27 tokens per session (874 once invoked), scanned B, a copy of strategic-compact, Apache-2.0.

A workflow aid that suggests manually shortening the conversation context at sensible points during a long coding session. Context is the information the agent carries from earlier messages and tool calls.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it during long sessions, after research or a major milestone, before starting a new task, or when the agent becomes slower or less coherent.
Why use it?
It reduces the chance that automatic context shortening interrupts a task halfway through or removes information needed for the next phase.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for Claude Code and Codex: PreToolUse hook event, but also installed under .codex/. Also seen: reads .claude/ paths; mentions CLAUDE.md; names the TodoWrite tool.

This is T-rav/hydraflow's own configuration. It tells Claude Code and Codex how to work on hydraflow itself, so it is not a mod to install elsewhere. Copy it as a starting point and replace the rules that are about this project. Everything hydraflow configures →

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to T-rav/hydraflow. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/T-rav/hydraflow/staging/.codex/skills/strategic-compact/SKILL.md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/T-rav/hydraflow

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for strategic-compact

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/t-rav/hydraflow/strategic-compact.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/t-rav/hydraflow/strategic-compact)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/t-rav/hydraflow/strategic-compact"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/t-rav/hydraflow/strategic-compact.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 27 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 874 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 97% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00027 $0.00874
Opus 5 $0.00014 $0.00437
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00175
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00087

Measured 6d ago against content hash a8ac1ec9b56d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-06, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

strategic-compact scanned grade B with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 6d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (suggest-compact.sh), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Reads agent configuration directoriesmediumAgent snooping

.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/ hold keys, settings and other credentials a mod has no legitimate need for.

Add to your `~/.claude/settings.json`:
Origin

This is a copy

97% identical to strategic-compact — 6 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

.codex/skills/strategic-compact/SKILL.md · 104 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 104 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Strategic Compact Skill

Suggests manual /compact at strategic points in your workflow rather than relying on arbitrary auto-compaction.

When to Activate

  • Running long sessions that approach context limits (200K+ tokens)
  • Working on multi-phase tasks (research → plan → implement → test)
  • Switching between unrelated tasks within the same session
  • After completing a major milestone and starting new work
  • When responses slow down or become less coherent (context pressure)

Why Strategic Compaction?

Auto-compaction triggers at arbitrary points:

  • Often mid-task, losing important context
  • No awareness of logical task boundaries
  • Can interrupt complex multi-step operations

Strategic compaction at logical boundaries:

  • After exploration, before execution — Compact research context, keep implementation plan
  • After completing a milestone — Fresh start for next phase
  • Before major context shifts — Clear exploration context before different task

How It Works

The suggest-compact.sh script runs on PreToolUse (Edit/Write) and:

  1. Tracks tool calls — Counts tool invocations in session
  2. Threshold detection — Suggests at configurable threshold (default: 50 calls)
  3. Periodic reminders — Reminds every 25 calls after threshold

Hook Setup

Add to your ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "Edit",
        "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "~/.claude/skills/strategic-compact/suggest-compact.sh" }]
      },
      {
        "matcher": "Write",
        "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "~/.claude/skills/strategic-compact/suggest-compact.sh" }]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Configuration

Environment variables:

  • COMPACT_THRESHOLD — Tool calls before first suggestion (default: 50)

Compaction Decision Guide

Use this table to decide when to compact:

Phase Transition Compact? Why
Research → Planning Yes Research context is bulky; plan is the distilled output
Planning → Implementation Yes Plan is in TodoWrite or a file; free up context for code
Implementation → Testing Maybe Keep if tests reference recent code; compact if switching focus
Debugging → Next feature Yes Debug traces pollute context for unrelated work
Mid-implementation No Losing variable names, file paths, and partial state is costly
After a failed approach Yes Clear the dead-end reasoning before trying a new approach

Read the full file on GitHub · 104 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 6d ago First seen · 104 lines · 27 tokens per session scan B a8ac1ec9b56d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

strategic-compact is a skill published in the GitHub repository T-rav/hydraflow (5 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 27 tokens to every session and 874 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (reads agent configuration directories). It is 97% identical to strategic-compact, differing in 6 lines, and is treated as a copy.