# Context

OpenClaw's "Context" represents everything the model receives for a run, constrained by the model's token limit. It encompasses the system prompt, conversation history, tool calls, and attachments.

## Key Components

The system breaks down into several parts:

- **System prompt** (built by OpenClaw): includes rules, tools, skills, time/runtime data, and workspace files
- **Conversation history**: user and assistant messages within the session
- **Tool results and attachments**: command outputs, file reads, media

## Context Inspection Commands

Users can monitor context usage via:

| Command | Description |
|---------|-------------|
| `/status` | Shows window fullness and session settings |
| `/context list` | Displays injected files with approximate token counts |
| `/context detail` | Provides granular breakdown by file and tool schemas |
| `/usage tokens` | Appends token usage to replies |
| `/compact` | Summarizes older messages to free space |

## What Counts Toward the Window

Everything sent to the model consumes tokens:

- System prompt sections
- Conversation history
- Tool calls and results
- Attachments and transcripts
- Compaction summaries
- Provider wrappers

## Workspace File Injection

OpenClaw automatically injects these files (if present):

- `AGENTS.md`
- `SOUL.md`
- `TOOLS.md`
- `IDENTITY.md`
- `USER.md`
- `HEARTBEAT.md`
- `BOOTSTRAP.md`

Files exceeding `bootstrapMaxChars` (default 20,000) are truncated, with truncation status indicated in context reports.

## Skills and Tools

Skills include metadata in the system prompt but load instruction details only when the model calls `/read` on the skill file.

Tools incur dual costs:
1. Text descriptions in the system prompt
2. JSON schemas that count toward context separately