v0.1.0 to v0.1.0

1 added, 1 removed. Audit A to A.

---

name: jev-compaction

- description: Use before writing a handoff, a session summary, a compaction capsule or notes for another agent, and whenever a long conversation must be shrunk without losing decisions, exact values or unfinished work. Jev marks each turn keep, summarize or drop; you write from what is left.

+ description: Use when shrinking a conversation you already have — a handoff, a session summary, a compaction capsule. Jev marks each turn keep, summarize or drop; you write the summary from what is left.

version: 0.1.0

license: MIT

metadata:

hermes:

tags: [jev, typesafe, compaction, handoff, context]

---

# Compaction and handoffs with Jev

Jev cannot write a summary. What it does is read the transcript turn by turn and mark each one:

- **keep**: carries a decision, a constraint, a preference, unfinished work, or an exact value, path, id, command or error that later work depends on. Survives word for word.

- **summarize**: background whose gist matters.

- **drop**: chatter, superseded attempts, repeated output.

You then summarize a fraction of the transcript, with the lines that must not be paraphrased already flagged. Handoffs get shorter and stop losing the one line that mattered.

## Do this

1. Get the transcript as a list of `{role, content}` messages. On Hermes: `hermes sessions export --format jsonl -`.

2. Select:

- Hermes: call `jev_compact_select` with `messages`.

- Anywhere else:

```bash

jev compact-select --digest < transcript.json # {"messages":[...]} or a bare list

```

3. Write the handoff **from `digest`**, not from the raw transcript:

- Every `[KEEP VERBATIM]` line goes in unchanged, grouped under Decisions, Open work, or Pointers (paths, ids, commands).

- `[background]` lines become at most one short paragraph of context.

- Add nothing that is not in the digest.

4. Keep the handoff under 400 words. If it will not fit, you are paraphrasing keep-lines; list them instead.

## Guarantees

- The last six messages are always kept; system messages are always kept.

- Nothing is dropped unless Jev was confident (0.7+). An unjudged turn is summarized, never dropped.

- Turns that look like they hold a secret are not sent; they default to summarize.

- Jev down: every turn comes back `summarize`, which is exactly what you would have done without it.

## When to compact at all

`should_compact` is arithmetic, not a model call: compact at 60% of the window, urgently at 85%. Do not ask a model whether the window is full.