The per-turn prompt was ~5.5K tokens (persona alone ~40%), sent up to 3x/turn.
Tightened by RELEVANCE (the control plane decides what each turn needs), not by
deletion — fidelity preserved, focus improved (buried instructions were getting
ignored), tokens roughly halved.
- persona split: core (identity + voice — always) vs situational sections pulled
in only when relevant. mind._persona_block: self-model/origin only on meta turns
(generous _META_HINTS), poker guardrails only in poker context (mode/strategic/
_POKER_HINTS). persona.core_prompt()/section(); system_prompt() kept as fallback.
- lean deliberation: the private 'what do I think' pass now uses a focused context
(her interiority + recent turns + the message), not the full persona/profile/
narrative/recall dump. It shapes the take, not the voice.
Measured: casual Talk turn 21,949 -> 15,974 chars (-27%); deliberation 21,949 ->
6,026 (-72%); meta turns still include the self-model. Suite 98 green, ruff clean.
Real retirement of the long prompt is still the fine-tune (mouth); this is the
cheap, high-leverage cut that also improves adherence.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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