NAME

SUMMARIZE — condense conversation history to free context window space

SYNOPSIS

/summarize /compact

DESCRIPTION

/summarize (alias: /compact) asks the active model to produce a concise summary of the current conversation, then replaces the entire history with:

1. The system prompt (re-injected automatically).
2. Any pinned context set with /context add.
3. A single user message containing the summary.

This frees up the context window so you can continue a long session without hitting the model’s token limit or degrading response quality from a very-full context.

The summary is generated by the same model you are currently using. Small or instruction-poor models may produce lower-quality summaries. If the summary is empty (e.g. the model refused or failed), history is left unchanged.

At least two non-system messages must exist in history; otherwise the command does nothing.

/compact is an exact alias for /summarize — both names work identically.

WORKFLOW

  harvey > /status
  Tokens: ~98 000 / 131 072 (74%)

  harvey > /summarize
  History condensed to 847 chars.

  harvey > /status
  Tokens: ~312 / 131 072 (0%)

WHAT SURVIVES SUMMARIZE

System prompt — re-injected automatically. Pinned context — re-injected as the first user message. RAG state — unaffected. Recording — the running session continues; summary is not written back to the Fountain file.

SEE ALSO

/context add TEXT — pin a summary you compose manually /clear — discard history entirely (no summary generated) /status — check context window usage before and after /help context /help clear