I removed compression instructions from all projects. Even with ~14% token savings (across 18 projects), it turns out not to be worth it:
- losing nuances leads to extra steps that wipe out all the savings with just one case in every 5-7 average sessions
- after reading compressed documentation, an agent slips into the same style in chat
I replaced them with a requirement to follow plain language and w3c coga principles. Without describing them. It works reliably only on new strong models, but I hardly use any others.