Tutorial 15: Context Management & Advanced Tool Use

Time: 60 minutes | Difficulty: Advanced

Master context window management with auto-compaction, effort levels, and advanced tool discovery features. These patterns are essential for building long-running agents and managing large tool collections.

🎯 What You'll Learn

Auto-compaction for managing context window size
Effort levels for controlling response quality
Tool search for dynamic tool discovery
MCP toolset configuration
Computer use v5 features

📋 Prerequisites

Before starting this tutorial, you should:

Complete Tutorials 0-6 (Foundation series)
Understand ReAct patterns and tool use
Have the Claude PHP SDK installed and configured

🚀 Key Concepts

Auto-Compaction

When building agents that run for extended periods or process large amounts of data, the context window can fill up quickly. Auto-compaction automatically summarizes and compresses the message history when it exceeds a specified token threshold.

$response = $client->messages()->create([
    'model' => 'claude-sonnet-4-20250514',
    'max_tokens' => 4096,
    'messages' => $messages,
    'compaction_control' => [
        'enabled' => true,
        'context_token_threshold' => 100000,
    ],
]);

When compaction triggers:

Total tokens (input + output) exceeds threshold
System generates a continuation summary
Message history is replaced with summary
Agent continues with compressed context

Effort Levels

Control the computational effort Claude puts into generating responses:

Level	Use Case	Trade-offs
`low`	Simple queries, classification	Fast, low tokens
`medium`	General tasks (default)	Balanced
`high`	Complex reasoning, analysis	Thorough, more tokens

$response = $client->messages()->create([
    'model' => 'claude-sonnet-4-20250514',
    'max_tokens' => 4096,
    'output_config' => [
        'effort' => 'high', // For complex reasoning
    ],
    'messages' => $messages,
]);

Tool Search

For large tool collections (100+ tools), loading all tools into the system prompt is inefficient. Tool search enables dynamic discovery:

// Define tools with deferred loading
$tools = [
    [
        'name' => 'analyze_data',
        'description' => 'Analyze data sets',
        'defer_loading' => true, // Not loaded initially
        'input_schema' => [...],
    ],
    // ... hundreds more tools
];

// Add search tool
$tools[] = [
    'type' => 'tool_search_tool_bm25_20251119',
    'name' => 'tool_search_tool_bm25',
];

// Claude can now search for tools by name/description
$response = $client->messages()->create([
    'model' => 'claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929',
    'max_tokens' => 1024,
    'tools' => $tools,
    'messages' => $messages,
    'betas' => ['tool-search-tool-2025-10-19'],
]);

MCP Toolsets

Configure tools from Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers:

$tools = [
    [
        'type' => 'mcp_toolset',
        'mcp_server_name' => 'database-server',
        'default_config' => [
            'enabled' => true,
            'defer_loading' => true,
        ],
        'configs' => [
            'safe_query' => ['defer_loading' => false], // Load immediately
            'drop_table' => ['enabled' => false], // Disable dangerous
        ],
    ],
];

💻 Tutorial Code

The tutorial code demonstrates:

Long-running agent with auto-compaction
Task complexity detection with effort levels
Dynamic tool discovery with search
Combining all features for optimal performance

Running the Tutorial

cd tutorials/15-context-management
php context_agent.php

🎓 Code Walkthrough

Part 1: Auto-Compaction Setup

class ContextManagedAgent
{
    private ClaudePhp $client;
    private array $messages = [];
    private int $compactionThreshold;
    
    public function __construct(
        ClaudePhp $client,
        int $compactionThreshold = 100000
    ) {
        $this->client = $client;
        $this->compactionThreshold = $compactionThreshold;
    }
    
    public function run(string $task): void
    {
        $this->messages[] = [
            'role' => 'user',
            'content' => $task,
        ];
        
        $previousMessageCount = count($this->messages);
        
        while (true) {
            $response = $this->client->messages()->create([
                'model' => 'claude-sonnet-4-20250514',
                'max_tokens' => 4096,
                'messages' => $this->messages,
                'compaction_control' => [
                    'enabled' => true,
                    'context_token_threshold' => $this->compactionThreshold,
                ],
            ]);
            
            // Detect compaction
            $currentMessageCount = count($this->messages);
            if ($currentMessageCount < $previousMessageCount) {
                echo "🔄 Compaction occurred!\n";
                echo "Messages: {$previousMessageCount} → {$currentMessageCount}\n";
            }
            $previousMessageCount = $currentMessageCount;
            
            // Add assistant response
            $this->messages[] = [
                'role' => 'assistant',
                'content' => $response->content,
            ];
            
            if ($response->stop_reason === 'end_turn') {
                break;
            }
        }
    }
}

Part 2: Dynamic Effort Selection

function selectEffortLevel(string $task): string
{
    // Simple heuristics for effort selection
    $complexIndicators = [
        'analyze', 'prove', 'explain why', 'compare and contrast',
        'security', 'optimization', 'architecture', 'debug',
    ];
    
    $simpleIndicators = [
        'what is', 'define', 'list', 'translate', 'summarize briefly',
    ];
    
    $taskLower = strtolower($task);
    
    foreach ($complexIndicators as $indicator) {
        if (str_contains($taskLower, $indicator)) {
            return 'high';
        }
    }
    
    foreach ($simpleIndicators as $indicator) {
        if (str_contains($taskLower, $indicator)) {
            return 'low';
        }
    }
    
    return 'medium';
}

// Usage
$task = "Analyze the security implications of this architecture";
$effort = selectEffortLevel($task);

$response = $client->messages()->create([
    'model' => 'claude-sonnet-4-20250514',
    'max_tokens' => 4096,
    'output_config' => ['effort' => $effort],
    'messages' => [['role' => 'user', 'content' => $task]],
]);

Part 3: Tool Search Implementation

function createToolSearcher(array $tools): callable
{
    return function(string $keyword) use ($tools): array {
        $results = [];
        
        foreach ($tools as $tool) {
            $searchText = json_encode($tool);
            
            if (stripos($searchText, $keyword) !== false) {
                $results[] = [
                    'type' => 'tool_reference',
                    'tool_name' => $tool['name'],
                ];
            }
        }
        
        return $results;
    };
}

// Create searchable tools
$tools = [];

// Add many deferred tools
foreach ($allToolDefinitions as $tool) {
    $tool['defer_loading'] = true;
    $tools[] = $tool;
}

// Add the search tool
$tools[] = [
    'name' => 'search_tools',
    'description' => 'Search for available tools by keyword',
    'input_schema' => [
        'type' => 'object',
        'properties' => [
            'keyword' => [
                'type' => 'string',
                'description' => 'Search keyword',
            ],
        ],
        'required' => ['keyword'],
    ],
];

$toolSearcher = createToolSearcher($tools);

📊 Performance Comparison

Feature	Without	With	Improvement
Context overflow	Fails at limit	Continues with summary	✓ Unlimited
100 tools in prompt	~5000 tokens	~500 tokens	90% reduction
Simple query latency	Medium	Low (with low effort)	40% faster
Complex analysis quality	Medium	High (with high effort)	Better output

🔧 Best Practices

Auto-Compaction

Set appropriate thresholds
- Default: 100,000 tokens
- Lower for memory-constrained scenarios
- Higher when context preservation is critical
Use custom summary prompts for domain-specific tasks
Monitor for compaction and adjust thresholds as needed

Effort Levels

Match effort to task complexity
- Don't use high effort for simple queries
- Reserve high for critical analysis
Combine with extended thinking for maximum depth
Monitor token usage - high effort costs more

Tool Search

Defer rarely-used tools to reduce prompt size
Use descriptive tool names for better search results
Consider BM25 vs Regex based on search needs

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

Context loss in compaction: Important details may be summarized away
- Store critical information externally
- Use system prompts for persistent context
Over-using high effort: Increases latency and costs
- Reserve for genuinely complex tasks
Too many loaded tools: Slows initial response
- Use defer_loading aggressively

🎯 Next Steps

After this tutorial:

Provide feedback

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Tutorial 15: Context Management & Advanced Tool Use

🎯 What You'll Learn

📋 Prerequisites

🚀 Key Concepts

Auto-Compaction

Effort Levels

Tool Search

MCP Toolsets

💻 Tutorial Code

Running the Tutorial

🎓 Code Walkthrough

Part 1: Auto-Compaction Setup

Part 2: Dynamic Effort Selection

Part 3: Tool Search Implementation

📊 Performance Comparison

🔧 Best Practices

Auto-Compaction

Effort Levels

Tool Search

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

🎯 Next Steps

📖 Related Resources

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Tutorial 15: Context Management & Advanced Tool Use

🎯 What You'll Learn

📋 Prerequisites

🚀 Key Concepts

Auto-Compaction

Effort Levels

Tool Search

MCP Toolsets

💻 Tutorial Code

Running the Tutorial

🎓 Code Walkthrough

Part 1: Auto-Compaction Setup

Part 2: Dynamic Effort Selection

Part 3: Tool Search Implementation

📊 Performance Comparison

🔧 Best Practices

Auto-Compaction

Effort Levels

Tool Search

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

🎯 Next Steps

📖 Related Resources