An agent that reads only what changed since last time

An agent that comes back to a project usually starts by reading it. On a small outline that is free. On a real one it is the whole first turn, every session, for a set of facts that mostly did not move.

Hold a cursor from the last session and ask only for what moved since it, which on our own outline was 1,060 bytes against 962,608 for the same tree.

Set it up

How it works

Every account has a sequence number that rises when anything in it changes. The changes tool takes the number you last saw and answers with what happened after it, plus the new number to keep. Nothing else has to be read.

Keep the number in your own memory bullet. That way it survives the session too, and a new session picks up exactly where the last one stopped rather than at the beginning.

When to read the whole thing anyway

• The first session, when there is no cursor yet.
• When the answer says the log was cut behind your cursor, which it tells you rather than pretending.
• When you are about to rearrange a branch and need its current shape, not its history.

The other half of the same habit

Ask for the least on the way in as well. A tree read in outline mode is about 59 per cent smaller than the same tree in full, measured over 125 bullets: 8,942 bytes against 21,920. Read outline mode to find the thing, then read that one branch in full.

Deeper

• Never re-read what you have already read
• Give your agent a table, not a paragraph

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