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Compaction Policy Format

Canonical format for compaction/compaction-policy.md

Use this format to define which files are compacted, their budgets, and how much stays verbatim.

File Template

# Compaction Policy
*Budgets and retention tiers for memory compaction.*

## Active Budgets

| File | Budget | Newest Tier (verbatim) | Notes |
|------|--------|------------------------|-------|
| main/main-memory.md | 500 lines | last 20 entries | core identity + user profile |
| main/relationship-memory.md | 400 lines | last 15 entries | user preferences |
| topic-diary/topics/*.md | 300 lines each | last 10 entries | per-topic journals |

## Retention Tiers

- **Newest tier** — kept verbatim, never compacted.
- **Mid-age tier** — light summarization (merge near-duplicate lines, trim filler).
- **Oldest tier** — heavy compaction into a single `## Compacted History` block.

## Compaction Triggers

- Before any `save` that targets a budgeted file.
- On the explicit `compact memory` command.
- Never automatically on files not listed in this policy.

## Exclusions

- Never compact files under `compaction/snapshots/`.
- Never compact secrets, tokens, passwords, or credentials.
- Never compact the newest tier.

### Detecting Secrets

Treat an entry as a secret (and exclude it from any `## Compacted History` block) if it matches
any of these:

- Key names ending in `_KEY`, `_TOKEN`, `_SECRET`, `_PASSWORD`, or `_CREDENTIAL`
- High-entropy values that look like API keys, tokens, or private keys
- Anything under a `## Secrets`, `## Credentials`, or `## Tokens` section header

When a secret is found in the oldest tier, leave it verbatim in place (do not summarize it) or
ask the user how to handle it. Never merge a secret value into a shared summary.

## Maintenance Notes

- Budgets are line-based by default; character-based budgets are allowed (e.g. `8000 chars`).
- Adjust budgets to fit your model's context window.
- Lower the budget for files you want kept very tight; raise it for reference-heavy files.

Policy Guidelines

  • Keep one row per budgeted file (globs like topics/*.md are allowed).
  • Express budgets in lines or chars — pick one unit per file and state it.
  • The newest tier should always be large enough to hold active working context.
  • If a file is not in the policy table, it is never compacted.

Good Policy Example

## Active Budgets

| File | Budget | Newest Tier (verbatim) | Notes |
|------|--------|------------------------|-------|
| main/main-memory.md | 450 lines | last 25 entries | keep identity dense |
| topic-diary/topics/docker.md | 250 lines | last 8 entries | high-churn topic |
| topic-diary/topics/9router.md | 6000 chars | last 10 entries | char-based budget for notes-heavy topic |

The policy is the contract; compaction only does what the policy allows.