principle-guard-the-context-window

Use it when:: Context is filling with large outputs, long files, repeated reads or fan-out planning.
It does:: Routes bulk work to subagents and keeps summaries, not raw payloads, in the main thread.
Also:: Sizes phases and caps scope: files per phase, turn budgets, and what each mechanism costs.
Runs:: Only when you call it.

Skill 13 of 14 in the pstack bundle, after principle-prove-it-works and before principle-encode-lessons-in-structure.

TL;DR

One of pstack's principle skills, in Cursor's plugin repo, and a very short one: beyond its description, it gives one reason, that context overflow degrades reasoning, leaves compression artifacts and halts progress, and one rule, to size phases and cap scope.

Summarizes the skill at 8ecfb19.

npx skills add https://github.com/cursor/plugins --skill principle-guard-the-context-window

skills.sh page Source on GitHub All skills from cursor/plugins

Total Downloads: 5,500 on skills.sh, Nov 9, 2026
Repo stars: 15,776 cursor/plugins
First seen: May 23, 2026 on skills.sh

Weekly Downloads

316

-14% over the 8 weeks to Nov 9

Weekly values

Week to	Installs
Sep 21	369
Sep 28	434
Oct 5	510
Oct 12	408
Oct 19	481
Oct 26	484
Nov 2	358
Nov 9	316

Category	category:agents category:software-engineering Build agents, orchestrate workers and give agents memory. Everything for building software: planning, coding, debugging, design, frameworks, cloud, agents and skills.
Type	type:guidelines Knowledge and rules the agent applies while it works: best practices, design principles, API references.
Effect	effect:none Adds no side effects of its own. It shapes how the agent thinks, writes or reviews. Guidelines and routers are always effect:none, even when the task they support edits code.
Needs	needs:subagents Relies on the agent being able to spawn subagents.
Publisher	by:community Everyone else. Unverified vendor claims default to community.
Topics	token-saving multi-agent

SKILL.md

From cursor/plugins at 8ecfb19. Checked daily, last changed Nov 6, 2026.

Frontmatter

name: principle-guard-the-context-window
description: "Apply when context is filling up: large outputs, long files, repeated reads, fan-out planning. Route bulk to subagents; keep summaries in the main thread, not raw payloads."
disable-model-invocation: true

Guard the Context Window

Why: Context overflow degrades reasoning quality, creates compression artifacts, and halts progress.

Pattern:

Size phases and cap scope. Limit files per phase, set turn budgets, account for mechanism costs.