rewind-compact

name: rewind-compact description: Prepare a limited conversation rewind, compressing the discarded turns into a "Tangential compaction summary." disable-model-invocation: true model: opus effort: medium argument-hint: ""

Rewind Compact

Long tangential explorations (document polishing, design iteration, prototyping, etc.) can consume many turns whose outcome is fully captured on disk. Rewinding past them compacts the context — but past-self has no memory of what happened after the rewind target. This skill produces a parsimonious "Tangential compaction summary" that the user pastes in after rewinding, bringing past-self up-to-date with minimal context usage.

The /rewind command allows the user to select any previous user-typed message as a checkpoint — your replies and tool results are not selectable. Picking one rewinds the conversation to the state just before the selected message was sent: the picked message and everything after it are discarded.

This skill relies on the concept of a rewind target: the specific user-typed message the user desires to rewind the conversation to. All relevant information between the rewind target and the current turn is compressed into the Tangential compaction summary, which the user will copy to clipboard and add back to the context window after performing the /rewind.

Procedure

1. Confirm the rewind target. Scan backward to find the turn matching $ARGUMENTS, which is a semantic description of the point the user wants to rewind to.

   • The rewind target is always a user-typed message. It is the point in the conversation that initiated the tangent.
   • The rewind target, and all messages after it, will be deleted by this procedure.

2. Commit all uncommitted work.

   • Use /commit and label the commit specifically as a /rewind-compact point.

3. Inventory state-on-disk changes between the rewind target and now:

   • Files written or edited (list paths).
   • Commits made (note IDs and branches).
   • Other persistent artifacts (GitHub issues, PRs).

4. Inventory in-conversation information between the rewind target and now:

   • Instructions, decisions, side notes, insights, asides.
   • Include only what can't be recovered by re-reading the committed files — anything already captured on disk is dropped.
   • Prepare to summarize this information in a concise, compact form that conveys the important ideas without all the little details.

5. Output two artifacts:

   1. The "Tangential compaction summary" inside a fenced code block (so the user can copy it verbatim and paste it after they invoke /rewind).
   2. The verbatim text of the rewind target — the message the user selects in /rewind. Label it **Your /rewind selection target:** and present it as a blockquote.

Output format

```
**Tangential compaction summary:**

A tangential iterative exploration of roughly <N> turns occurred from this point. The conversation was then rewound back to here. The current state of <file path> is preferred — re-read it to bring yourself up to date.

The following commits landed during the tangent (not commits you authored):
   - <commit-id> on <branch>.
   - <commit-id> on <branch>.
   - ...

<Other in-conversation information, parsimoniously stated. Omit this paragraph if everything was captured on disk.>
```

**Your /rewind selection target:**

> <verbatim text of the rewind target>

Notes

• Give a rough turn count from a quick glance back — don't ask the user, and don't enumerate; precision doesn't matter.
• "Re-read the file" instructions must use full paths so past-self knows exactly what to load.
• Multiple files may have changed — list them all.
• If past-self's prior work at the rewind target was substantive (a draft, a diagram, a decision), explicitly say "the current state is preferred" so they don't try to redo it.