wehub-resource-sync
56 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
56 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
---
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title: "Auto Compact"
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sidebarTitle: "Auto Compact"
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description: "Automatic context summarization to keep working when approaching context limits."
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---
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When your conversation approaches the model's context window limit, Cline automatically summarizes it to free up space and keep working.
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<Frame>
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<img
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src="https://storage.googleapis.com/cline_public_images/docs/assets/condensing.png"
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alt="Auto-compact condensing conversation context"
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/>
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</Frame>
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## How It Works
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Cline monitors token usage during your conversation. When you're getting close to the limit, it:
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1. Creates a comprehensive summary of everything that's happened
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2. Preserves all technical details, code changes, and decisions
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3. Replaces the conversation history with the summary
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4. Continues exactly where it left off
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You'll see a summarization tool call when this happens, showing the cost like any other API call.
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## Why This Matters
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Previously, Cline would truncate older messages when hitting context limits, losing important context.
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Now with summarization:
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- All technical decisions and code patterns are preserved
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- File changes and project context remain intact
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- Cline remembers everything it's done
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- You can work on much larger projects without interruption
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<Tip>
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Auto Compact works especially well for long-running tasks. Structured task lists can help maintain progress across summarizations so Cline can stay on track across multiple context windows.
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</Tip>
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## Cost Considerations
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Summarization leverages your existing prompt cache from the conversation, so it costs about the same as any other tool call.
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Since most input tokens are already cached, you're primarily paying for summary generation (output tokens), making it cost-effective.
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<Note>
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With other models, Cline falls back to standard rule-based context truncation, even if Auto Compact is enabled.
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</Note>
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## Restoring Context
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You can use [checkpoints](/core-workflows/checkpoints) to restore your task state from before a summarization occurred. You never truly lose context since you can always roll back.
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Editing a message before a summarization tool call works similarly, restoring the conversation to that point.
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