---
title: "mk:context-audit"
description: "Read-only audit of .claude/ structural overhead — reports prioritized 'remove X save Y tokens' recommendations against the model context window."
---

# mk:context-audit

## What This Skill Does

Walks `.claude/` and tells you how much of the model context window your always-on setup is using. Prints a prioritized "remove X save Y tokens" report to the terminal. Read-only — no files are modified.

## When to Use

- **Before adding a new agent, skill, or rule** — confirm you are below the 25% structural-overhead threshold.
- **When sessions feel slow or off-topic** — check if structural overhead has grown past 10%.
- **Quarterly health check** — confirm the always-on bundle still pays its keep, paired with the dead-weight audit in `harness-rules.md` Rule 7.

## Boundaries

| Concern              | Use this instead                                         |
|----------------------|----------------------------------------------------------|
| USD cost tracking    | `/mk:budget`                                              |
| Transcript caching   | `.claude/hooks/conversation-summary-cache.sh`             |
| Runtime agent trim   | `mk:lazy-agent-loader`                                    |
| Window utilization   | **`/mk:context-audit`** (this skill)                      |

## Usage

```bash
/mk:context-audit
/mk:context-audit <scan-root>
```

`<scan-root>` defaults to the current working directory.

## Workflow

1. **Inventory** — walks `.claude/` and emits byte / line counts per category (CLAUDE.md chain, agents, skills, rules, commands, MCP) as JSON.
2. **Estimate** — enriches the inventory with token estimates (chars/4 heuristic) and computes `structural_overhead_pct` against a 200K window.
3. **Format** — emits a 5-section markdown report: header, summary table, top consumers, recommendations, footer.
4. **Banner** — Healthy (`< 10%`), Watch (`10–25%`), or Action (`≥ 25%`).

## Output

```
# Context Audit — <scan_root>
*Scanned at <timestamp> · model window 200K tokens · banner: <Healthy|Watch|Action>*

## Summary
| Category | Components | Bytes | Tokens | % of Window |

## Top Consumers
1. <component> ~<tokens> (<path>)

## Recommendations
1. <priority finding> — saves ~<tokens>

## How to Act
- Cost: see `/mk:budget`
- Transcript: see `.claude/hooks/conversation-summary-cache.sh`
- Runtime trim: see `mk:lazy-agent-loader`
```

## Pro Tips

- **Pair with `/mk:budget`** — context-audit reports tokens (window utilization), `/mk:budget` reports USD (monetary cost). They answer different questions.
- **Run after model upgrades** — components that were load-bearing on Opus 4.5 may be dead weight on Opus 4.7. The audit gives you the data; `harness-rules.md` Rule 7 is the playbook for acting on it.
- **No env vars** — window size is hard-coded 200K. Override is deferred until a real 1M-context use case appears.

> **Canonical source:** `.claude/skills/context-audit/SKILL.md`
