Context efficiency after grouped workspace migration#

The September 19, 2026 follow-up keeps all approval, Heart, review and release requirements. It reduces repeated reads, not the evidence needed to decide.

  • Root, Brain and Mind AGENTS: 43,365 bytes before; 25,731 bytes after the root update, a 40.7% reduction in these maintained instruction surfaces.

  • Brain AGENTS: 18,471 → 9,654 bytes; Mind: 12,507 → 5,070 bytes.

  • PRM body: 349 → 169 lines. Its MCP lane, library freeze details and post-merge close-out are conditional reads. They remain required when their trigger applies.

  • The new context guide and wrappers are included in procedure accounting: approximately 377 mandatory lines for start-dev and 370 for PRM, including shared context/workflow pages. Shared pages are reused within a session.

These are static byte/line measurements, not tokenizer results or measured runtime/billing savings. The usage study had a 98.6% median cached-input rate across 14 Astra-containing parent sessions; workers and differing scopes prevent an exact before/after task-cost claim. Use codex_usage.md for subsequent matched-task comparisons, including outcomes and correction loops.

Check maintained budgets#

From the resolved Mind checkout (set PYAUTO_ROOT to the workspace being measured):

python3 scripts/token_load.py report --root "$PYAUTO_ROOT"
python3 scripts/token_load.py check --root "$PYAUTO_ROOT"

The report lists core and conditional files separately, includes entry wrappers, counts shared workflow/context pages, and reports their union without duplicates. Missing required files fail the check. Byte/4 estimates are explicitly approximate.

Activate root instructions after both PRs merge#

Repo instructions and linked skills take effect when the installed main checkouts advance. The untracked workspace root needs this explicit, reviewable local step. From the updated Brain checkout:

source bin/_pyauto_root.sh
source bin/_repo_paths.sh
python3 bin/workspace_instructions.py --root "$PYAUTO_ROOT"        # check
python3 bin/workspace_instructions.py --root "$PYAUTO_ROOT" --write
bash bin/install.sh --write-workspace-policy

Machine-specific HPC instructions remain local and untouched. The section updater changes only recognized old/new sections; unexpected local edits fail closed. It preserves custom top-level sections, generated routing, safety rules and symlinks. Do not overwrite local additions to resolve a refusal. Refresh root routing and the Brain owner map using Mind’s repos_sync.py after reviewing its write scope (its --only flag scopes checks, not generation). For a two-surface refresh, use that module’s routing_table/owner_map and write_block APIs rather than writing every other repository’s generated files. The task root preview is the review artifact; installation is not a merge grant.

CONTEXT.md defines bounded results and completed-phase handoffs. Continue authorized work; fresh sessions are a human choice at natural boundaries, not a reason for agents to stop early.