AI by Hand ✍️

AI by Hand ✍️

The Compaction Threshold

Picking the number from a round

Prof. Tom Yeh's avatar
Prof. Tom Yeh
Aug 19, 2026
∙ Paid

Library › Context Problems

  1. The Context Window

  2. Window Occupancy

  3. Growth per Turn

  4. Remaining Space

  5. Turn Budget

  6. Retrieval Footprint

  7. Retrieval per Turn

  8. Search Rounds

  9. Window Sizing

  10. Truncation

  11. Compaction

  12. The Compaction Bill

  13. Compacted Retrieval

  14. The Compaction Threshold

  15. Verbatim Tail

  16. Stateless API

  17. Retrieval Cost

  18. Context Tax

  19. Quadratic Cost

  20. Cost Forecast

A threshold picked by taste is a threshold picked wrong. The number has to come from the size of a round. Compaction must fire while there is still room for one more question and one more answer, or the agent runs out of window with nowhere to put the reply. So the trigger sits where the conversation last had a full round of room, and whatever percentage that works out to is the percentage.

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