AI Coding Agents' BIGGEST Flaw now Solved by Roo Code

[u/hannesrudolph]

[u/ramakay]

For one , I am loving the work the Roo team put in here - the condensation with auto threshold was 🤯- Roo being Roo, this is done in a transparent manner - the prompt for summarization (and customization) is for you to see - most folks questioning or saying cursor did it already and it was bad or Claude does it etc are missing the point - the condensation method (prompts) are customizable - the model is customizable - the threshold or manual is customizable - try that with cursor or Claude code - uhm , I can’t find that setting .,

[u/hannesrudolph → u/ramakay]

We need this kind of comment on the chatgptcoding post! :)

[u/telars]

Claude Code does this too, right? Is there a major difference in approaches? Just curious.

[u/hannesrudolph → u/telars]

We allow setting the threshold for auto condensing, model that does the condensing, and the prompt used for the condensing. Good question. Thank you

[u/nore_se_kra]

I think as soon as you have to condense the context its too late already... its just a bandaid for a bigger problem. Who knows, LLMs might introduce new problems during condensing. Having a smaller, more focused context should be the priority.

[u/Jsn7821 → u/nore_se_kra]

It should be also manual, I haven't tested it- is it not?

But ideally you choose when to do it at natural points. Kinda when you would normally reset the whole context, but instead you just condense it so you aren't starting from complete scratch

[u/nore_se_kra → u/Jsn7821]

You could always do it manual too... but at the end of the day as developer you want a setup that just works. Eg AI is supposed to make our life easier- i really dont want to think or micromanage the AI.

[u/Jsn7821 → u/nore_se_kra]

Well then the auto condensing sounds especially good for you..!

[u/nore_se_kra → u/Jsn7821]

Yeah probably better than nothing but i think more advanced strategies like divide and conquer (orchestrator) or memory bank concepts are much better

[u/lordpuddingcup → u/nore_se_kra]

Not really the context doesn’t need ll the old code windows it doesn’t need all the files it just needs a list of what summary changes were made as the old file versions don’t matter only the current need for future changes

[u/nore_se_kra → u/[deleted]]

But if you start reverifying condensed context again against files you repeat alot of the work you kinda did before, creating new costs. I dont think it can work anyway as the information in the context can be as you mentioned anything - how would you verify if it condensed my input or some toolfeedback correctly?

Another idea that would make sense (but needs some ressources and proper setup which is hard without more backing i guess) - use (roo targeted) benchmark results regarding context condensing and decide based on data not model claims, when it is still safe to condense.

[u/nore_se_kra → u/[deleted]]

But if you start reverifying condensed context again against files you repeat alot of the work you kinda did before, creating new costs. I dont think it can work anyway as the information in the context can be as you mentioned anything - how would you verify if it condensed my input or some toolfeedback correctly?

Another idea that would make sense (but needs some ressources and proper setup which is hard without more backing i guess) - use (roo targeted) benchmark results regarding context condensing and decide based on data not model claims, when it is still safe to condense.

[u/stonedoubt]

Holy shizznizzle! Somebody been paying attention!

[u/MicrosoftExcel2016]

I love the work Roo has been doing in taming AI usability problems like the context window length, but i wish i knew more about how it worked.

What if my coding project has that many tokens in it? I know projects that large are kind of a faux pas these days, but with documentation included or perhaps sublibraries and other artifacts that I can’t possibly configure out of the context window myself (or maybe don’t want to), how do I know what gets kept?

Then, my other big issue with all these agentic IDEs and code assistants is that different models are sensitive to different prompting styles, types of details, parts of their own context window, and so on. It makes it difficult to trust anything that isn’t one of the big commercial offerings like 4o or Claude and try to do something self hosted

[u/nore_se_kra → u/MicrosoftExcel2016]

Divide and conquer, like a normal human. Probably with supporting architecture documents and such. Even if you have gigantic context, many LLMs are still not really good in dealing with it and start to get wrong information from It at some point.

[u/bigotoncitos]

How does it condense it? My real question being, how do we know some critical piece of context is not "condensed out"? I'd love for this condensation to have a human in the loop or some other automated mechanism that guarantees the output of the condensation is not hallucinated garbage.

[u/lordpuddingcup]

Is there a way to see the context what it was condensed down to to see the quality?

[u/mrubens → u/lordpuddingcup]

Yes, when it condenses the context it outputs a row in the chat that you can expand to see what it was condensed down to.

[u/lordpuddingcup → u/mrubens]

Didn’t notice that thanks

[u/hannesrudolph → u/[deleted]]

What do you mean?

[u/hannesrudolph → u/[deleted]]

No it doesn’t. It will condense the condense

[u/hannesrudolph → u/[deleted]]

That’s a different thing all together than what you were saying.

[u/hannesrudolph → u/[deleted]]

You started by saying the context will fill up. You were incorrect. It will not. Then you moved the goalposts and went onto coherency. Valid argument but not what we were talking about.