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Assistant Workflow Examples

These examples are written as prompts or workflow snippets for people using coding assistants and agent tools.

Read A Long Project Note​

Use ContextCrumb to compress docs/planning/roadmap.md before using it as context. Work from the compressed output unless you need exact wording.

Typical command:

contextcrumb load docs/planning/roadmap.md

Compress A Research Folder​

Compress the Markdown research notes into a temporary folder with ContextCrumb, then use the compressed files to plan the implementation.

Typical command:

contextcrumb batch research --glob "*.md" --out .contextcrumb/research

Inspect Before Acting​

Run contextcrumb inspect on the transcript first. If it keeps less than half the tokens, also run contextcrumb diff and check whether important names or constraints were deleted.

Typical commands:

contextcrumb inspect transcript.txt
contextcrumb diff transcript.txt

Code-Aware Source Loading​

This source file has long comments. Use ContextCrumb in code-comments mode so executable code stays exact and only comments/docstrings are compressed.

Typical commands:

contextcrumb load src/app.py
contextcrumb load src/component.tsx --content-mode code-comments

For config snippets, commands, generated diffs, SQL, and unsupported code, load the raw source when exact structure matters.

Use MCP​

Call the contextcrumb compress_file MCP tool on the long Markdown file, then use the returned text as compressed context.

Good MCP arguments:

{
  "path": "docs/notes.md",
  "target_keep_ratio": 0.5
}

For supported code files:

{
  "path": "src/app.py",
  "content_mode": "code-comments"
}

Compress A Long Prompt Before Planning​

The request below is long and mostly prose. Compress it with ContextCrumb at a conservative keep ratio, then use the compressed version for planning. Keep exact commands and acceptance criteria raw. Supported source files can be loaded separately with code-comments mode.

Typical command for a saved prompt:

contextcrumb load prompt.txt --target-keep-ratio 0.75

Compress A Subagent Report​

Before handing the research report to the implementation agent, compress the narrative sections with ContextCrumb. Preserve commands, URLs, and identifiers exactly. If the report references supported source files, load those files with code-comments mode.

Typical command:

contextcrumb load research-report.md --target-keep-ratio 0.55

Compress Tool Output Carefully​

The tool output contains JSON. Do not compress the whole JSON blob. Compress only long prose fields such as description, body, summary, comment, or notes, and keep ids, URLs, statuses, timestamps, and numeric values unchanged.

For agents with direct MCP access, call compress_text on each safe prose field instead of on the full JSON object.