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Glossary

Compaction

Replacing an older part of a conversation with a summary so the work can go on after the context window fills up.

What survives is what the summary keeps: decisions, file paths, the state of the task. What goes is the exact wording of everything that led there. The trade is deliberate — a shorter conversation that still knows where it is beats a full one that no longer fits.

It is not the same as starting over. Clearing throws the conversation away and is the right move when the next task has nothing to do with the last; compaction keeps the thread when it does.