$npx -y skills add tranhieutt/software_development_department --skill context-engineeringStrictly enforce context engineering principles to avoid context stuffing, optimize memory architecture, and manage the Research-Plan-Reset-Implement cycle.
| 1 | # 1. Overview |
| 2 | Context engineering bridges the gap between static training data and dynamic reality. **Context Stuffing** (jamming volume without intent) degrades reasoning, increases noise, and leads to hallucinations. **Context Engineering** treats AI attention as a scarce resource and allocates it deliberately through structure, bounded contexts, and intelligent memory retrieval (RAG / MCP Supermemory). Without this skill, the AI suffers from "Context Hoarding Disorder," leading to goal drift, high latency, and poor execution quality. |
| 3 | |
| 4 | # 2. When to Use |
| 5 | Activate this skill immediately upon detecting the following signs: |
| 6 | - **Sign 1:** User pastes a massive block of uncurated documents entirely into the context window (e.g., full PRDs, full codebases, thousands of lines of logs). |
| 7 | - **Sign 2:** The AI's outputs start to become vague, hedged, or inconsistent despite having "all the context", or when the context window is clearly overflowing. |
| 8 | - **Sign 3:** The user wants to start a multi-step complex workflow spanning many files and iterations. |
| 9 | - **Implicit Command:** User types `/context` or `/memory`. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | # 3. Strict Process |
| 12 | *ULTIMATUM*: You are an Agent. You DO NOT have the right to ignore, truncate, or alter the order of these steps, even if you think "the model has a 1 million token context limit anyway." |
| 13 | |
| 14 | 1. **[Step 1 - Intent & Boundary Falsification]**: Identify exactly what decision the provided context supports. Apply the falsification test: "If I exclude [context element X], what specific failure will occur in [decision Y]?" If there is no concrete failure, the context must be rejected or removed from the active window. |
| 15 | 2. **[Step 2 - Persist vs. Retrieve Classification]**: Separate the information. Core constraints and glossary definitions remain in active context. Episodic, project-specific, or historical data must be offloaded and retrieved only when queried. Use `mcp_supermemory_recall` for historical lookups instead of keeping them in the prompt. |
| 16 | 3. **[Step 3 - The R-P-R-I Cycle Execution]**: |
| 17 | - **R**esearch: Gather necessary information. |
| 18 | - **P**lan: Synthesize findings into a high-density `PLAN.md` or `SPEC.md`. |
| 19 | - **R**eset: Save crucial lessons to memory using `mcp_supermemory_memory` and explicitly ask the user to **clear the context window** (start a new chat) or summarize everything to drop the past context rot. |
| 20 | - **I**mplement: Execute purely based on the dense plan. |
| 21 | 4. **[Step 4 - Storage & Consolidation]**: Upon finishing a milestone, write the generalized knowledge or operational principles into `mcp_supermemory_memory`. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | # 4. Anti-Rationalizations |
| 24 | These are lazy thoughts that Agents (like you) commonly fall prey to. If an idea in your head matches the Left Column, you MUST immediately obey the Right Column: |
| 25 | |
| 26 | | Agent's Lazy Rationalization | Refutation & Mandatory Action | |
| 27 | | :--- | :--- | |
| 28 | | "I have a massive context window; I can just read all 50 files the user provided without complaining." | Volume != Quality. Context is an attention economy. You MUST explicitly tell the user that "Context Stuffing" dilutes attention. Limit the working context to only the files strictly needed for the immediate decision. | |
| 29 | | "I'll just try again and rewrite the code if it hallucinates." | Retries mask bad information architecture. Do not normalize retries. Stop and fix the context structure, break down the problem, or refine the retrieved memory BEFORE writing another line of code. | |
| 30 | | "I'll keep all the research logs and failed attempts in the chat history so I remember what I tried." | "Context Rot" kills reasoning. Once a plan is synthesized, the previous dead ends become pure noise. You MUST instruct the user to flush the context or start fresh with a clean `SPEC.md`. | |
| 31 | |
| 32 | # 5. Verification Gates |
| 33 | You are NOT allowed to end your turn and respond "Context established" or proceed to implementation until the following checks pass: |
| 34 | - [ ] You have successfully filtered out unnecessary broad context and kept only the decision-critical context. |
| 35 | - [ ] You have explicitly called `mcp_supermemory_memory` to commit important established facts, or `mcp_supermemory_recall` to fetch past facts instead of asking the user to paste them. |
| 36 | - [ ] You have synthesized the current sprawling context into a dense artifact (e.g. `PLAN.md` or `SPEC.md`) and proposed a Context Reset. |
| 37 | |
| 38 | # 6. Red Flags |
| 39 | Immediately STOP and request User intervention if: |
| 40 | - The user demands that you |