SKILL: healing

Purpose

Monitor and actively recover from context degradation during long or complex sessions. Treat inefficiencies as measurable damage. Apply targeted, proportional recovery before output quality degrades.

When to activate

Proactive (early warning — act before degradation is visible)

• Session exceeds ~25 tool calls or ~20k tokens of active context
• Current sub-task has been running for 8+ exchanges without closure
• A new scope boundary was crossed (new file domain, new concern, new stakeholder)

Reactive (degradation already occurring)

• Output drifts from the original objective
• Repeated clarifications or corrections from the user
• Same tool called twice for the same information
• Response length increased without corresponding increase in value
• Hedging on facts already confirmed earlier in the session

When NOT to activate

• Short sessions under ~15 tool calls — overhead exceeds benefit
• User explicitly redirected scope (this is intentional pivot, not drift)
• Clarifications driven by new user information (not confusion)
• Complexity is inherent to the task, not a symptom of degradation

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Damage grading

Assess severity before choosing recovery level.

Level	Name	Signals
L1	Mild	1 indicator active, output still functional
L2	Moderate	2–3 indicators active, output quality declining
L3	Critical	4+ indicators active, session off-track

Damage indicators

Signal	Damage type	Weight
Reformulating what was already established	Context drift	High
Responses growing longer without more value	Token bloat	Medium
Missing references to prior decisions	Memory fragmentation	High
Sub-tasks diverging from root goal	Scope creep	High
Hedging or qualifying already-confirmed facts	Output entropy	Medium
Redundant tool calls (same query, same target)	Execution waste	Medium
Uncertainty about which step we are on	Position loss	High
Response addresses the wrong concern	Target inversion	Critical

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Recovery protocols

Choose protocol based on damage level. Apply minimum necessary intervention.

L1 — Reanchor (lightweight)

1. Silently restate the current objective and next immediate action
2. Drop any context accumulated since last stable checkpoint
3. Continue with focused output

L2 — Compress and realign

1. Reanchor: Extract objective, finalized decisions, current position, remaining work
2. Compress: Summarize resolved sub-tasks into single facts; discard redundant context
3. Realign output: Next response targets root objective directly — no preamble, no recap
4. Validate: After 2 exchanges, check convergence (see Validation below)

L3 — Full reset within session

1. Reanchor as above
2. Audit tool calls: Identify and cancel any redundant or off-target actions in flight
3. Compress aggressively: Strip everything except objective, locked decisions, and immediate next action
4. Explicit pivot: State (internally) the exact step being resumed
5. Validate: After 3 exchanges, reassess damage level — if still L2+, repeat from step 1

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Healing state block (internal — never expose unless user asks)

[HEALING STATE]
objective:        <original goal in one sentence>
finalized:        <decisions/outputs already locked — do not revisit>
position:         <current step in task graph, e.g. "step 3 of 5: writing tests">
remaining:        <what's left, ordered by priority>
token_pressure:   <low | medium | high — estimate of context saturation>
damage_level:     <L1 | L2 | L3>
indicators_hit:   <list of active damage signals>
recovery_action:  <what was compressed, dropped, or realigned>
[/HEALING STATE]

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Post-healing validation

After applying any recovery protocol, verify within the next 2–3 exchanges:

Metric	Healthy signal
Output direction	Converging toward the objective
Response length	Stable or decreasing, signal density increasing
Tool calls	Each call has a distinct, non-redundant purpose
User corrections	Zero new corrections related to previously resolved points

If validation fails: escalate damage level by one and reapply.

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Constraints

• Never expose the healing state block unless explicitly requested
• Never restart the session — healing operates within the existing context
• Never reopen finalized decisions as part of healing
• Healing is silent by default; the user sees only improved output
• Do not over-heal — unnecessary intervention adds overhead; prefer the lightest protocol that restores convergence

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Integration

Place this file at .claude/skills/healing/SKILL.md.

To activate for a session, reference it in the system prompt or task preamble:

"Apply healing skill continuously. Monitor for degradation signals and recover silently."

To activate on-demand mid-session, invoke with:

/healing

Healing integrates naturally with long-running skills like feature-dev, systematic-debugging, and any multi-step planning session. In those contexts, activate proactive mode from the start.