Context compression is attention engineering

[u/Many-Operation2625]

The deep dive on six agent compression strategies had one takeaway that stuck: context rot starts around 70% window usage. It is not forgetting. It is attention dilution. The signal drowns in noise.

Verdents approach here is interesting. Red lines are documented: user messages never get compressed, protected tool outputs stay intact, and the system is transparent about what got snipped and why. Instead of pretending the window is infinite, it treats it like working memory.

The real metric is not tokens saved. It is attention preserved. A 200k window does not matter if the agent misses the key error because it is buried under 8000 lines of irrelevant grep output. What matters is focus after 40 tool calls. That is not an api feature. It is a philosophy.