filesystem-context

# Filesystem-Based Context Engineering Use the filesystem as the primary overflow layer for agent context because context windows are limited while tasks often require more information than fits in a single window. Files let agents store, retrieve, and update an effectively unlimited amount of context through a single interface. Prefer dynamic context discovery -- pulling relevant context on demand -- over static inclusion, because static context consumes tokens regardless of relevance and crowds out space for task-specific information. ## When to Activate Activate this skill when: - Tool outputs are bloating the context window - Agents need to persist state across long trajectories - Sub-agents must share information without direct message passing - Tasks require more context than fits in the window - Building agents that learn and update their own instructions - Implementing scratch pads for intermediate results - Terminal outputs or logs need to be accessible to agents Do not activate this skill for adjacent work owned by other skills: - Semantic cross-session memory, entity tracking, or temporal knowledge graphs: `memory-systems`. - Conversation summarization, compaction, or durable handoff wording: `context-compression`. - Token-efficiency tactics that do not require file-backed storage: `context-optimization`. - Multi-agent topology or handoff protocol design: `multi-agent-patterns`. ## Core Concepts Diagnose context failures against these four modes, because eac...