Context Is a Resource

"Every file loaded pays rent on every API call."

The Problem

You have 8 steering files. 77KB total. They load on EVERY call. Even when you ask "fix this typo."

Cost: 19,500 tokens × $3/MTok = $0.06/call
× 50 calls/day = $3/day = $90/month
For files relevant 15% of the time.

The Three Categories

Every file in your agent's context falls into one of these:

ALWAYS LOAD >70% of sessions

general.md standards.md session-resume.md

~3.3 KB · ~830 tokens

Small, universal, used every time. Keep it lean.

ON-DEMAND 30-70% of sessions

deploy-workflow.md remo-oss.md dependency-graph.yaml

~49 KB · ~12,250 tokens

Move to "skills" — loads only when triggered by keyword.

NEVER LOAD <30% or 0%

*.bak files old-notes.md deprecated-rules.md

~15 KB · 0 tokens (deleted)

Dead weight. Delete. It costs $0.04/call for nothing.

How On-Demand Works

File lives in skills/ with a SKILL.md describing triggers

→

User says keyword: "deploy", "remo", "impact"

→

Agent loads the skill file only for that conversation

Result: 49KB loads only when needed instead of always.
Saves ~12,250 tokens on 85% of your calls.

One caveat: each skill still costs ~85 tokens/call in manifest overhead (name + triggers).
At 12,250 tokens saved vs 85 tokens cost, the ratio is 140:1 in your favor — but don't skill-spam. See Steering Over Skills →

DIY: Audit Your Context in 5 Minutes

List your files with sizes

find .kiro/steering -type f | xargs wc -c | sort -rn

# Output:
# 20634 dependency-graph.yaml    ← ON-DEMAND (only deploys)
# 15558 sofe-deploy-workflow.md   ← ON-DEMAND (only deploys)
# 15226 sofe-deploy-workflow.bak  ← DELETE (dead file!)
# 13095 remo-oss.md               ← ON-DEMAND (only Remo)
#  5755 session-resume.md         ← ALWAYS (universal)
#  1757 package-env-standards.md  ← ALWAYS (universal)
#  1556 general.md                ← ALWAYS (universal)

Tag frequency

For each file ask: "In what % of my sessions do I actually use this?"

>70% → ALWAYS
30-70% → ON-DEMAND
<30% → DELETE

Move "on-demand" to skills/

mkdir -p .kiro/skills/deploy-workflow
mv .kiro/steering/dependency-graph.yaml .kiro/skills/deploy-workflow/
mv .kiro/steering/sofe-deploy-workflow.md .kiro/skills/deploy-workflow/

# Create trigger file (SKILL.md):
# Content: "Load when: deploy, impact analysis, blast radius"

Delete dead files

rm .kiro/steering/*.bak
# That's $25/month saved. For deleting one file.

The Result

Before

77.9 KB

19,500 tokens/call

~$90/mo wasted

→

After

13.4 KB

3,345 tokens/call

~$0 wasted

5 minutes of work. -83% context overhead.

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