Operator Guide
Working with Agents
Context Hygiene, Restart, and Sarcophagus Mode
Learn when to continue, clarify, or restart an agent context, especially after stale context, closure contamination, or sarcophagus mode.
Context reset is not failure. Context reset is agent state hygiene.
Open canonical markdown guide
Source: docs/felix/operations/20260629_working_with_agents_context_hygiene_restart_sarcophagus_mode.md
Guide topics
Restart usage
When a clean task identity is better than continuity.
When a clean task identity is better than continuity.
Stale context
How old instructions can become operational drag.
How old instructions can become operational drag.
Closure contamination
What happens when “no further changes” leaks into a new task.
What happens when “no further changes” leaks into a new task.
Sarcophagus mode
When an agent becomes over-attached to a previous closure.
When an agent becomes over-attached to a previous closure.
Clean restart prompt patterns
Reusable wording for safe new-task starts.
Reusable wording for safe new-task starts.
PI/Codex behavior
Why some agents may over-preserve closure instructions.
Why some agents may over-preserve closure instructions.
AGY/documentation-agent behavior
Why nuanced agents still benefit from clear scope.
Why nuanced agents still benefit from clear scope.
AI suggests. Operator decides.
Help should be advisory, not coercive.
Help should be advisory, not coercive.
Product UX note
A Mr Felix video/tutorial could explain this concept generally, but an in-product contextual popup at the right moment would be more useful.
Teach the operator at the moment of friction.
Manuals document behavior.
Videos explain concepts.
Contextual popups save operations.
Manuals document behavior.
Videos explain concepts.
Contextual popups save operations.
This is v1. The goal is to make operator guidance reachable from the K UI, not to build the final Help Center.