You know this one
The permanent tax
Pinning project context into a system prompt taxes every request — including the ones that never needed it. Then a compaction throws it away anyway, and you type the architecture out again.
On-demand context
Your tree, symbols and import graph sit in a skill your agent opens only when the task calls for them. Every session that does not, pays nothing for them.
No card · Your own API key · Two minutes to set up
session 10 tokens
session 20 tokens
session 3map opened
On-demand skill · not a system prompt
You know this one
Pinning project context into a system prompt taxes every request — including the ones that never needed it. Then a compaction throws it away anyway, and you type the architecture out again.
The project knowledge is a capability the agent can open, not a preamble it must carry. Idle knowledge costs zero tokens.
Renaming a symbol, tracing an import, finding where a thing lives — the agent pulls the map for those, and only those.
Loaded from disk every session, not carried in the conversation. The /compact that used to erase twenty minutes of explanation now erases nothing.
No card · Your own API key · Two minutes to set up