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Agent skill

Context Budget

by OneWave-AI in OneWave-AI/claude-skills

A skill your agent uses when a coding session is burning context fast, output is drowning in noise, the model keeps forgetting earlier decisions, or the user asks to reduce tokens, stop the verbose…

MITAuto-check passedAgent Workflows

Install Context Budget

skills CLI
$ npx skills add OneWave-AI/claude-skills --skill context-budget -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install OneWave-AI/claude-skills context-budget --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/OneWave-AI/claude-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/context-budget .claude/skills/context-budget && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
context-budget
GitHub stars
328
Token cost
~941 tokens
SKILL.md length
523 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
69
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

A skill your agent uses when a coding session is burning context fast, output is drowning in noise, the model keeps forgetting earlier decisions, or the user asks to reduce tokens, stop the verbose…

  • Works in 3 steps: Write the current state to a plan or… → State the single next action. → Tell the user a fresh session will be…
  • A coding session is burning context fast
  • SKILL.md covers Core Behavior, Spend Rules, Where the Budget Actually Goes and Compaction Points, plus 2 more sections
  • Calls npm and git

What it does

Context Budget is an agent skill from OneWave-AI/claude-skills. Use when a coding session is burning context fast, output is drowning in noise, the model keeps forgetting earlier decisions, or the user asks to reduce tokens, stop the verbose narration, work in a huge repo, or make a long session survive. Covers what to read, what to summarize, what to write to disk, and when to start fresh.

Its SKILL.md is about 940 tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Agent Workflows, covering Context engineering, Text to speech and voice and LLM cost and token optimization. The repository describes itself as: 200+ production-ready Claude Code skills for sales, marketing, design, engineering, and AI agent architecture. Built and maintained by OneWave AI. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • A coding session is burning context fast
  • Output is drowning in noise
  • The model keeps forgetting earlier decisions
  • The user asks to reduce tokens

Example prompts

  • “/context-budget”

Requirements

  • Node.js

Workflow steps

3 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Write the current state to a plan or handoff file on disk.
  2. State the single next action.
  3. Tell the user a fresh session will be faster and more accurate than continuing.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit fc5b785. 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:

    • npm
    • git

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

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md. Its commands use npm and git, which can reach the network depending on how they are called.

    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 941 tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 86 tokens; SKILL.md has 523 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~86
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~941

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

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

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 OneWave-AI/claude-skills at commit fc5b785, republished under its MIT licence (© OneWave-AI). 523 words, ~941 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/context-budget/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
context-budget
description
Use when a coding session is burning context fast, output is drowning in noise, the model keeps forgetting earlier decisions, or the user asks to reduce tokens, stop the verbose narration, work in a huge repo, or make a long session survive. Covers what to read, what to summarize, what to write to disk, and when to start fresh.

Context Budget

Context is the scarcest resource in a long session. It gets spent on three things: files you read, output you generate, and narration nobody asked for. Only the first one is usually worth it.

Core Behavior

Treat the context window like a budget with a balance. Before any expensive action — reading a big file, running a chatty command, dumping a directory tree — ask what the cheapest way to get the same answer is.

Spend Rules

Read narrowly. sed -n '120,190p' file.ts beats reading a 2,000-line file to see one function. Grep for the symbol, then read the 40 lines around it. Read a whole file only when you are about to restructure it.

Search before reading. grep -rn "symbolName" --include="*.ts" costs a few hundred tokens and tells you which of forty files matters.

Silence the noisy commands. Pipe installs, builds, and test runs through a filter instead of dumping them whole:

bash
npm test 2>&1 | tail -30
npm run build 2>&1 | grep -E "error|Error|warning" | head -20
npm install --silent 2>&1 | tail -5
git diff --stat            # not git diff, unless you need the hunks

A passing test suite needs one line of proof, not 400.

Write instead of remembering. Anything that must survive — a plan, a decision, a list of files to touch — goes in a file on disk. Files are re-readable at a cost you choose; context is not.

Do not re-read what you just wrote. If an edit succeeded, it succeeded. Re-reading to "verify" is pure spend.

Cut the narration. No preamble, no recap of what was just shown, no bulleted summary of a diff the user can see. Say what changed and what is next, in a line or two.

Where the Budget Actually Goes

When a session bloats, it is almost always one of these:

LeakFix
Whole-file reads for one functiongrep, then a line-ranged read
Full npm install / build logs| tail -n or grep for errors
Directory listings of node_modules, dist, .nextprune them in the find/ls
Re-reading files after editingtrust the edit result
Long explanations of finished workone line
Pasting a file back to show a small changeshow the diff hunk only
Repeating the plan every turnplan lives in a file
Show full SKILL.md (182 more words)Show less

Compaction Points

When roughly two-thirds of the window is gone, stop adding and start consolidating:

  1. Write the current state to a plan or handoff file on disk.
  2. State the single next action.
  3. Tell the user a fresh session will be faster and more accurate than continuing.

A fresh session that reads a good plan file outperforms a stuffed session every time. Do not treat starting over as failure — it is the intended move.

Large Repos

  • Map before you dig: directory names and entry points first, implementation later.
  • Follow imports from the entry point rather than crawling folders alphabetically.
  • One subsystem at a time. Finish it, write down what you learned, move on.
  • Generated code, lockfiles, and snapshots are never worth reading. Exclude them by default.

What Not to Cut

Economy has a floor. Never skip:

  • Reading the actual code before changing it.
  • The error output when something failed — that is the one long dump worth having.
  • The user's own requirements, quoted.

Being cheap about the wrong thing produces confident, wrong work. The goal is fewer tokens, not less evidence.

© OneWave-AI, 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 context-budget of OneWave-AI/claude-skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit fc5b785

Compare with similar skills

Context Budget next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Context Budget compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Context Budget this skillOneWave-AI/claude-skills328—~941Automated safety check: PassMIT
Context DoctorjzOcb/context-doctor119—~642Automated safety check: PassMIT
Caveman Learn Token FixesJuliusBrussee/caveman111k—~2.8kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
OmniRoute Context CLIdiegosouzapw/OmniRoute74k—~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Subagent Brief DisciplineLichAmnesia/lich-skills234—~1.6kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Compact Guidejh941213/my-cc-harness126—~621Automated safety check: PassNone

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Categories

Questions about Context Budget

What does Context Budget do?

A skill your agent uses when a coding session is burning context fast, output is drowning in noise, the model keeps forgetting earlier decisions, or the user asks to reduce tokens, stop the verbose…. Context Budget is an agent skill from OneWave-AI/claude-skills. Use when a coding session is burning context fast, output is drowning in noise, the model keeps forgetting earlier decisions, or the user asks to reduce tokens, stop the verbose narration, work in a huge repo, or make a long session survive.

When should I use Context Budget?

Context Budget fits situations like: A coding session is burning context fast; output is drowning in noise; the model keeps forgetting earlier decisions; the user asks to reduce tokens.

How do I install Context Budget in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add OneWave-AI/claude-skills --skill context-budget -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (context-budget in OneWave-AI/claude-skills) into .claude/skills/context-budget in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Context Budget in Codex?

Run `npx skills add OneWave-AI/claude-skills --skill context-budget -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (context-budget in OneWave-AI/claude-skills) into .agents/skills/context-budget in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Context Budget in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add OneWave-AI/claude-skills --skill context-budget -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/context-budget, .gemini/skills/context-budget, .github/skills/context-budget and .opencode/skills/context-budget in your project.

What does Context Budget need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, Context Budget needs the command-line tools its instructions call (npm and git). Our summary lists: Node.js.

Does Context Budget access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Its commands use npm and git, which can reach the network depending on how they are called. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Context Budget safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Context Budget use?

Context Budget is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Context Budget use?

About 941 tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 3.8k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Context Budget?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Context Budget: Context Doctor (jzOcb/context-doctor, 119 stars), Caveman Learn Token Fixes (JuliusBrussee/caveman, 111k stars), OmniRoute Context CLI (diegosouzapw/OmniRoute, 74k stars) and Subagent Brief Discipline (LichAmnesia/lich-skills, 234 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Context Budget?

OneWave-AI (a GitHub organization) maintains it in OneWave-AI/claude-skills, which has 328 GitHub stars. The repository holds 69 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 2, 2026.

Source: OneWave-AI/claude-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.