#15 · a compaction rewrites your history into a working brief
Hermes Wingtips #15: a compaction rewrites your history into a working brief
when a long session reaches the compaction point, Hermes doesn't drop the middle turns, it rewrites them into a structured brief with fixed slots:
goal / constraints / progress / key decisions / relevant files / next steps / critical context.
that brief carries the working state forward, and the raw turns stay in state.db where session_search can still reach them.
so a compaction is your agent re-reading its own notes, not losing the thread.
(1) work in the brief's shape: state goals and decisions in plain words, so they map straight into the slots that get kept
(2) for anything that must never drop, put it in MEMORY.md, which reloads on every session no matter how many compactions happen