Date: 2026-09-11 Date: 2026-09-10

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Context and session management

Keep long Nova sessions focused by understanding what enters context, when to compact it, and where durable information belongs.

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Why context matters

The active model can reason only over the information currently supplied to it. In Nova, that context may include system policy, organisation rules, agent instructions, project guidance, saved memory, conversation turns, tool definitions, and recent tool results. Context is not the same as the repository. Files remain on disk until Nova searches or reads them. A large codebase does not automatically consume the whole context window.

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Sources of context

Nova assembles relevant information from:
  • Built-in system and workflow instructions.
  • Organisation rules and policies when configured.
  • The active agent’s prompt and capability profile.
  • NOVA.md, NOVA.local.md, and .compass/rules/*.md project instructions.
  • Explicit project and shared memory topics.
  • The current conversation and its summaries.
  • Results from file, shell, Git, MCP, and other tools.
  • User-provided file references and attachments.
Because these layers can conflict, higher-authority safety and organisation policies take precedence over project or user instructions.

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Inspect context usage

Use:
The command reports the major consumers of the active context, including conversation, tool definitions, skills, slash commands, and other injected material. It is useful when responses become less focused or a long task approaches model limits. Use /usage for usage information. Context consumption and account usage are related but not interchangeable.

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Keep prompts scoped

Efficient sessions give Nova a bounded objective and concrete evidence targets. Prefer:
Avoid combining unrelated implementation, architecture, deployment, documentation, and research requests into one turn unless they are genuinely one workflow. When changing topics substantially, start a separate session or use a side question rather than carrying irrelevant history forward.

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Side questions

Use /ask for a question that should not pollute the main conversation:
The side question receives useful context but does not append its exchange to the main thread. This is valuable during an implementation when a brief explanation should not alter the task narrative.

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Compact long sessions

Use:
Compaction replaces older conversational detail with a bounded summary so the session can continue with more available context. Nova also supports a preview:
A compacted summary should preserve decisions, constraints, completed work, unresolved blockers, key paths, and the next action. It cannot preserve every discarded nuance, so record critical durable rules in project instructions rather than relying only on chat history.

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Clear, reset, and rollback

These operations have different scopes:
  • /rollback last removes the last user/assistant turn from conversation context; existing side effects remain.
  • /clear creates a fresh session after clearing conversation history, token statistics, operation history, and compacted summaries. It prompts before clearing conversations with more than 20 messages unless --force is supplied.
  • /reset is registered as an alias of /clear; it does not expose a broader in-session reset operation.
  • nova reset is a separate, destructive top-level command for deleting global or project Compass data. Review its scope and confirmation prompt carefully.
  • /compact preserves a summary and is usually the safer option when the goal is merely to free context.
Do not use a context command as a substitute for reverting files, Git commits, sent messages, database writes, or external actions.

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Saved sessions

Nova stores project session history under Compass-managed state. From the terminal, use:
This lists archived sessions for the current project. Provide a session ID to resume it:
Session lookup is project-aware. Launch the command from the same project root so Nova resolves the expected history.

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Instructions versus memory

Use the right persistence mechanism:
  • NOVA.md and rules — stable team conventions and instructions that should shape future work.
  • Memory — explicit preferences, project decisions, deadlines, and references worth recalling later.
  • Session history — the detailed record of one conversation.
  • Compaction summary — continuity for the current long-running session.
Do not save secrets, raw credentials, private document contents, transient logs, or facts that can be derived from the repository into durable memory.

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Practical strategy

  1. Start each session with one coherent objective.
  2. Let Nova search for code rather than pasting entire directories.
  3. Use @file references for critical inputs.
  4. Inspect /context when the thread becomes long.
  5. Use /ask for isolated questions.
  6. Preview and run /compact before context pressure becomes severe.
  7. Move stable conventions into NOVA.md or a focused rule file.
  8. Resume saved sessions only when their decisions still apply to the current repository state.

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What you learned

  • Context is finite and contains retrieved project evidence, instructions, conversation, and tool results.
  • Use scoped prompts, side questions, and compaction to keep a session focused.
  • Store enduring rules in project instructions and use memory or session history only for their appropriate purpose.

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Safe practice exercise

In a long non-production session, run /context, then use /compact --preview. Check that the preview preserves the next action and constraints before you compact the conversation.

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Continue to lesson 7.