errantmind

What does this mean? I'm not plugging anything.

Long context windows reduce performance and exceeding your context window is impossible. It should be a given that deleting context.. is just that. You do it when you must to preserve your session without compaction.

The regular /prune command leaves tool call 'receipts', which includes the command executed and whether it succeeded or failed, but not results. The extended prune removes both.

The how is important, but I've found all of the decisions, question, answers, and results are the most important and the tool calls themselves secondary. When necessary, the tool calls can be deleted without much being lost.

In my experience, the best approach to compaction is to never get to the point where you need compaction and to generally stay below about 30% context window utilization. Even for long agentic workflows this can be accomplished for quite a while, much longer than most people might think.

Here's what I do for each of my sessions:

1. For asides, off-topic work, or repetitive work that has already been done in the session, branch backwards (with /tree) and summarize.

2. If I've exceeded 30% or the 'price-doubling' multi-tier pricing, prune (my custom extension).

3. If I've already pruned and I'm still close to 30%, 'prune all' (more extensive prune).

Definition:

'/prune': Removes ~50% context on a fresh session (not previously pruned)

  - Keeps: User messages, normal assistant prose, commands/status markers, extension receipts, model settings, and a plain-text receipt for each tool call.
  - Removes: Thinking, signatures, actual tool calls/results, tool output, images, compaction summaries, and other extensions’ state.

'/prune-extended': Removes ~80% context on a fresh session

  - Keeps: User messages, normal assistant prose and conclusions, commands/status markers, extension receipts, and model settings.
  - Removes: Thinking, signatures, all tool calls/results and output, images, compaction summaries, other extensions’ state, and any tool-activity receipts created by /prune.

Both create a new session and delete the old one after a successful switch.

Using these I can keep a session going for weeks (or longer), even with extensive use and almost all the important context is preserved while dumping the less important context. Neither command requires an LLM summarization so they execute quickly.

You can be frugal without spending a lot of mental energy on your expenses. It seems contradictory but it is possible to 'live' frugally without thinking about money all that much (assuming you aren't broke and have positive cash flow). The real challenge is escaping consumerism as a means of (superficial) fulfillment.

> When you default to the lowest cost option without considering the drawbacks, procrastinating or hesitating on spending[...]

This is terrible advice, one of the easiest ways to be frugal is not to be overly attached and to defer spending.

You can also get excellent results with User Scripts that connect to a local language model.

1. Run LM Studio (download the Gemma 4 model), which has a 'local server' w/ API.

2. Use a more powerful LLM to write User Scripts (Greasemonkey, etc) to do whatever you want on any website you go to. Instruct it to connect to LM Studio.

3. Classify and highlight posts / comments based on any criteria that suits you. Summarize, delete from the DOM, etc., Just have fun.

The best part about choosing a simple WM is you never have to think about it again. I installed and configured DWM many years ago and it just works. Never had a single issue after the first week.

It is like when you buy an appliance and it just fades into the background and then, one day, you realize you've had it for 10 years without any problems and you feel a tinge of gratitude before moving on with your day.

This article fails to mention that a lot of current commercial scale battery co-locations' purpose is to capitalize on rare but highly profitable periods where demand spikes and spot prices go up by, sometimes, multiple orders of magnitude.

The idea is to store the power until these events. A lot of money is made from these.

As someone who has used Firefox since 1.0 (~20 years ago), I fully support returning Mozilla's sole focus to its users. Huge amounts of 'free' money has a tendency to de-focus organizations.

This will lead to a game of 'homeless hot potato' among neighborhoods in larger cities as each pass ordinances that ban various 'homeless activities' in their borders.

I had the opportunity to hear a guest lecture of his in Colorado a little over 15 years ago which inspired my further study of philosophy at the time. He had a keen mind and will be missed.

For info, I checked and it looks like none of my AGPL licensed repos are included in The Stack. Neither are my private repos.