AI Systems Atlas

X-07Sliding Window

/context/sliding-window

Keep the last N turns verbatim; summarize everything older into a rolling digest.

Step-by-step walkthrough3 steps
  1. Turns age out of the verbatim zone into a rolling summary.
  2. The model always sees recent turns exactly, older ones compressed.
  3. Simple and predictable — but importance-blind: a critical fact ages out like any other turn. Pair it with pinned facts.
Key insight

The cheapest compaction strategy that works — predictable cost, predictable behavior, one prompt to maintain.

Failure mode

Importance-blindness: a critical fact ages out exactly like small talk. Pair it with pinned, never-evicted facts.

Further reading
RelatedContext compactionContext rot

Elsewhere in the atlas

Harnesses →Security →Evals →Coding Agents →Tools →Ops →