Context Budget

What it does

When your agent uses it

• The context window is filling up too fast and the agents
• Rules consuming it need to be identified

Example prompts

• “Use the context-budget skill to audit Claude Code context window consumption across agents, skills, MCP servers, and rules”
• “/context-budget”

Requirements

• Python 3

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

1. 1Inventory
2. 2Classify
3. 3Detect Issues
4. 4Report

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 2d515e4. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • python3

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

  • code.claude.com

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Context Budget loads about 1.9k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 84 tokens; SKILL.md has 634 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~84

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.9k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from affaan-m/ECC at commit 2d515e4, republished under its MIT licence (© affaan-m). 634 words, ~1,913 tokens.

name

context-budget

description

Audits Claude Code context window consumption across agents, skills, MCP servers, and rules. Identifies bloat, redundant components, and produces prioritized token-savings recommendations. Use when the context window is filling up too fast and the agents, skills, MCP servers, or rules consuming it need to be identified.

metadata.origin

ECC

python3 - "/path/to/selected-session.jsonl" <<'EOF'
import json
import sys

total = attachment = other = unclassified = 0
try:
    with open(sys.argv[1], "rb") as source:
        for raw in source:
            size = len(raw)
            total += size
            try:
                record = json.loads(raw.decode("utf-8"))
            except (UnicodeDecodeError, json.JSONDecodeError):
                unclassified += size
                continue
            record_type = record.get("type") if isinstance(record, dict) else None
            if not isinstance(record_type, str):
                unclassified += size
            elif record_type == "attachment":
                attachment += size
            else:
                other += size
except OSError:
    print("Cannot read selected JSONL file.", file=sys.stderr)
    raise SystemExit(1)

pct = attachment * 100.0 / total if total else 0.0
print(f"persisted {total}B | attachment records {attachment}B ({pct:.1f}%) | "
      f"other records {other}B | unclassified {unclassified}B")
EOF

Context Budget Report
═══════════════════════════════════════

Total estimated overhead: ~XX,XXX tokens
Context model: Claude Sonnet (200K window)
Effective available context: ~XXX,XXX tokens (XX%)

Component Breakdown:
┌─────────────────┬────────┬───────────┐
│ Component       │ Count  │ Tokens    │
├─────────────────┼────────┼───────────┤
│ Agents          │ N      │ ~X,XXX    │
│ Skills          │ N      │ ~X,XXX    │
│ Rules           │ N      │ ~X,XXX    │
│ MCP tools       │ N      │ ~XX,XXX   │
│ CLAUDE.md       │ N      │ ~X,XXX    │
└─────────────────┴────────┴───────────┘

WARNING: Issues Found (N):
[ranked by token savings]

Top 3 Optimizations:
1. [action] → save ~X,XXX tokens
2. [action] → save ~X,XXX tokens
3. [action] → save ~X,XXX tokens

Potential savings: ~XX,XXX tokens (XX% of current overhead)

User: /context-budget
Skill: Scans setup → 16 agents (12,400 tokens), 28 skills (6,200), 87 MCP tools (43,500), 2 CLAUDE.md (1,200)
       Flags: 3 heavy agents, 14 MCP servers (3 CLI-replaceable)
       Top saving: remove 3 MCP servers → -27,500 tokens (47% overhead reduction)

User: /context-budget --verbose
Skill: Full report + per-file breakdown showing planner.md (213 lines, 1,840 tokens),
       MCP tool list with per-tool sizes, duplicated rule lines side by side

User: I want to add 5 more MCP servers, do I have room?
Skill: Current overhead 33% → adding 5 servers (~50 tools) would add ~25,000 tokens → pushes to 45% overhead
       Recommendation: remove 2 CLI-replaceable servers first to stay under 40%

© affaan-m, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/context-budget of affaan-m/ECC.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 2d515e4

Used in 3 other repositories

We found 8 copies of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 3 other GitHub owners. This page covers the copy in affaan-m/ECC, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

• loulanyue/awesome-claude-notesskills/context-budgetdocs/tr/skills/context-budget+4 more
• Sidiora-Labs/centra-llm-agentsprotocol/skills/context-budget
• templetongroup/radiantskills/context-budget