nodus-context

LLM context window management: token budget, compaction strategies, and tool result guards for AI systems.

Keeps agent conversations within finite LLM context windows without manual message pruning. No required external dependencies — token counting uses a word-count estimate by default; install tiktoken for accurate counts.

Status: v0.1.0 — prepared, not yet published.

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Install

pip install nodus-context

# With accurate tiktoken-based token counting:
pip install "nodus-context[tiktoken]"

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What it provides

Component	Purpose
ContextBudget	Token budget with utilization tracking and overflow detection
ContextMessage	Normalized message (role, content, token count)
ContextWindow	Message list with budget enforcement and compaction
DropToolInternalsStrategy	Remove intermediate tool calls, keep final pairs
SummarizeStrategy	Keep head + tail, replace middle with a summary message
estimate_tokens / count_tokens	Word-estimate or tiktoken-accurate counting

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Quick start

from nodus_context import ContextWindow, ContextBudget, ROLE_USER, ROLE_ASSISTANT

budget = ContextBudget(max_tokens=8192)
window = ContextWindow(budget=budget)

window.add(ROLE_USER, "What is the capital of France?")
window.add(ROLE_ASSISTANT, "The capital of France is Paris.")

messages = window.messages()   # list of ContextMessage
print(f"Using {budget.used}/{budget.max_tokens} tokens")

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ContextBudget

from nodus_context import ContextBudget

budget = ContextBudget(max_tokens=4096, reserve_tokens=512)
budget.add(150)                # record token usage
budget.utilization             # float 0.0–1.0
budget.available               # tokens remaining (respects reserve)
budget.is_over_budget          # True if used > max_tokens
budget.reset()

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ContextWindow

from nodus_context import ContextWindow, ContextBudget, DropToolInternalsStrategy

window = ContextWindow(
    budget=ContextBudget(max_tokens=8192),
    compaction_strategy=DropToolInternalsStrategy(),
    compaction_threshold=0.85,   # compact when 85% full
)

window.add(role, content)         # adds message, tracks tokens
window.add_raw(context_message)   # add pre-built ContextMessage
window.messages()                 # current message list
window.compact()                  # trigger compaction manually
window.guard_tool_results(n=2)    # keep only the last n tool result pairs
window.token_count                # current total
window.message_count

Compaction runs automatically when utilization >= compaction_threshold.

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Compaction strategies

DropToolInternalsStrategy

Removes intermediate tool_use / tool_result pairs, keeping only the final n pairs. Reduces context without losing the outcome.

from nodus_context import DropToolInternalsStrategy
strategy = DropToolInternalsStrategy(keep_last_n_pairs=1)

SummarizeStrategy

Keeps the first head_count and last tail_count messages; replaces everything in between with a single summary message.

from nodus_context import SummarizeStrategy
strategy = SummarizeStrategy(
    head_count=2,
    tail_count=4,
    summary_fn=lambda msgs: "Summary of intermediate steps.",
)

summary_fn can call an LLM — any callable that takes a list of ContextMessage and returns a string.

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Token counting

from nodus_context import estimate_tokens, count_tokens

estimate_tokens("Hello, world!")   # fast word-count estimate (no dep)
count_tokens("Hello, world!")      # tiktoken if installed, else estimate

Install nodus-context[tiktoken] for accurate counts.

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Role constants

from nodus_context import (
    ROLE_USER, ROLE_ASSISTANT, ROLE_SYSTEM,
    ROLE_TOOL_USE, ROLE_TOOL_RESULT, ROLE_THINKING,
)

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Design

• No required dependencies. Token estimation uses ~4 chars per token heuristic. Accurate counting requires tiktoken (optional extra).
• Protocol-based strategies. Any callable satisfying CompactionStrategy works — no inheritance needed.

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Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest tests/ -q

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.