Strategic Context Management

Manage context by starting new sessions at strategic points in your workflow rather than running into context limits.

Why Strategic Session Boundaries?

Running out of context at arbitrary points causes:

• Loss of important task context mid-implementation
• No awareness of logical task boundaries
• Interrupted complex multi-step operations

Strategic session boundaries at logical milestones:

• After exploration, before execution — Fresh session with implementation plan
• After completing a milestone — Clean start for next phase
• Before major context shifts — New session for different task

When to Start a New Session

Consider starting a new session when:

1. After planning — Plan is finalized, start fresh for implementation
2. After debugging — Error resolution complete, clear context for next task
3. After major milestone — Feature complete, start review in fresh session
4. Context feels heavy — Many files read, lots of tool output accumulated

Best Practices

1. Summarize before ending — Document current state before starting new session
2. Save plans to files — Write implementation plans to .codex/plan/ so they survive across sessions
3. Commit frequently — Git commits serve as recovery points
4. Use checkpoints — /checkpoint create before major transitions
5. Don't split mid-implementation — Keep related changes in same session