Manual Compaction

Commands for manually managing conversation context

Manual compaction commands give you direct control over your conversation history.

Start Here

Start Here allows you to restart your conversation from a specific point, using that message as the entire conversation history. This is available on:

• Plans — Click ”🎯 Start Here” on any plan to use it as your conversation starting point
• Final Assistant messages — Click ”🎯 Start Here” on any completed assistant response

This is a form of “opportunistic compaction” — the content is already well-structured, so the operation is instant. You can review the new starting point before the old context is permanently removed, making this the only reversible compaction approach.

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Compact (AI Summarization)

Compress conversation history using AI summarization. Replaces the conversation with a compact summary that preserves context.

Syntax

/compact [-t <tokens>] [-m <model>]
[continue message on subsequent lines]

Options

• -t <tokens> — Maximum output tokens for the summary (default: ~2000 words)
• -m <model> — Model to use for compaction (sticky preference). Supports abbreviations like haiku, sonnet, or full model strings

Examples

Basic compaction:

/compact

Limit summary size:

/compact -t 5000

Choose compaction model:

/compact -m haiku

Use Haiku for faster, lower-cost compaction. This becomes your default until changed.

Auto-continue with custom message:

/compact
Continue implementing the auth system

After compaction completes, automatically sends “Continue implementing the auth system” as a follow-up message.

Multiline continue message:

/compact
Now let's refactor the middleware to use the new auth context.
Make sure to add tests for the error cases.

Continue messages can span multiple lines for more detailed instructions.

Combine all options:

/compact -m haiku -t 8000
Keep working on the feature

Combine custom model, token limit, and auto-continue message.

Notes

• Model preference persists globally across workspaces
• Uses the specified model (or workspace model by default) to summarize conversation history
• Preserves actionable context and specific details
• Irreversible — original messages are replaced
• Continue message is sent once after compaction completes (not persisted)

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Clear All History

Remove all messages from conversation history.

Syntax

/clear

Notes

• Instant deletion of all messages
• Irreversible — all history is permanently removed
• Use when you want to start a completely new conversation

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Truncate (Simple Truncation)

Remove a percentage of messages from conversation history (from the oldest first).

Syntax

/truncate <percentage>

Parameters

• percentage (required) — Percentage of messages to remove (0-100)

Examples

/truncate 50

Remove oldest 50% of messages.

Notes

• Simple deletion, no AI involved
• Removes messages from oldest to newest
• About as fast as /clear
• /truncate 100 is equivalent to /clear
• Irreversible — messages are permanently removed

OpenAI Responses API Limitation

/truncate does not work with OpenAI models due to the Responses API architecture:

• OpenAI’s Responses API stores conversation state server-side
• Manual message deletion via /truncate doesn’t affect the server-side state
• Instead, OpenAI models use automatic truncation (truncation: "auto")
• When context exceeds the limit, the API automatically drops messages from the middle of the conversation

Workarounds for OpenAI:

• Use /clear to start a fresh conversation
• Use /compact to intelligently summarize and reduce context
• Rely on automatic truncation (enabled by default)