smart-compaction — piclaw-addons

Open Settings → Add-Ons and pick smart-compaction

⚠️ For vanilla pi users. Piclaw already includes smart compaction natively. If this package is loaded inside Piclaw it disables itself by default to avoid duplicate compaction handlers.

This is a standalone, code-complete Pi extension package that ports Piclaw's selective smart-compaction behavior into a vanilla pi add-on. It does not import Piclaw runtime internals and does not move or replace Piclaw's built-in implementation.

What it does

Hooks session_before_compact and returns a custom compaction result.
Selects high-signal conversation fragments instead of summarizing the full transcript blindly.
Preserves current/kept-window context so summaries do not over-focus on stale work.
Detects recent topic shifts and demotes older topics to background context.
Uses no-op mechanical compaction for safe split-turn/minimal-content cases.
Uses progressive chunk/merge compaction when the prompt is too large for the active model.
Adds deterministic <read-files> and <modified-files> sections.
Uses Pi's standard working-status feedback only; it does not create extra notification/message panes.

Install

From a local checkout:

bash

pi install /workspace/piclaw-addons/addons/smart-compaction

Or run temporarily:

bash

pi -e /workspace/piclaw-addons/addons/smart-compaction

Piclaw behavior

This package is meant for users running upstream/vanilla pi. In Piclaw, the equivalent extension is already built in. To avoid registering two compaction handlers, this add-on checks for Piclaw runtime environment variables and stays inert unless explicitly forced:

bash

PI_SMART_COMPACTION_ALLOW_PICLAW=1 pi -e /path/to/smart-compaction

Use that override only for local testing.

Configuration

Optional environment variables:

Variable	Purpose
`PI_SMART_COMPACTION_DEBUG=1`	Log debug details to stderr/console.
`PI_SMART_COMPACTION_SYSTEM_PROMPT_OVERHEAD_TOKENS`	Override estimated non-message prompt/tool overhead.
`PI_SMART_COMPACTION_PROGRESSIVE=1`	Force progressive chunk/merge compaction.
`PI_SMART_COMPACTION_PROGRESSIVE_PROMPT_CHARS`	Override the single-pass prompt character budget before progressive mode.

Historical PICLAW_* equivalents are accepted for copied local configurations, but PI_SMART_COMPACTION_* is preferred for vanilla pi.

Notes

The extension uses the active session model and public Pi/Pi-AI APIs:

session_before_compact
ctx.modelRegistry.getApiKeyAndHeaders(model)
completeSimple

Message/file serialization is bundled locally so no Piclaw source imports are required at runtime.