13 KiB
13 KiB
description
| description |
|---|
| Create context markers on-demand - save your progress anytime |
Navigator Marker - Save Points for Your Conversation
Create context markers during work to capture your current state. Think of it as git commits for your AI conversation.
What This Does
Creates a snapshot of your current work state that you can restore later.
Traditional approach: Work until compact, lose intermediate context
With markers:
- Save progress anytime
- Multiple markers per session
- Resume from any point
- Safety nets before risky changes
When to Use
✅ Perfect Times for Markers
Before taking breaks:
You: "Implemented auth flow, going to lunch"
You: /nav:marker lunch-break
Result: Resume perfectly after lunch
Before exploring approaches:
You: /nav:marker before-refactor
You: "Let's try refactoring X"
*doesn't work*
You: Read @.agent/.context-markers/before-refactor.md
Result: Back to known good state
During long features:
Day 1: Core implementation → /nav:marker day1-core
Day 2: Add integrations → /nav:marker day2-integrations
Day 3: Tests & polish → /nav:marker day3-complete
Result: Checkpoints throughout multi-day work
Before risky changes:
You: "About to refactor entire routing system"
You: /nav:marker pre-routing-refactor
Result: Safety net if things go wrong
End of day:
You: /nav:marker eod-2025-10-12
Result: Tomorrow starts with perfect context
After important decisions:
You: "We decided to use PostgreSQL instead of MongoDB"
You: /nav:marker architecture-decision
Result: Decision captured with full context
Usage
Basic Usage
/nav:marker
Creates marker with auto-generated name: marker-2025-10-12-143022.md
Named Markers
/nav:marker before-refactor
/nav:marker lunch-break
/nav:marker pre-deployment
/nav:marker day1-complete
Creates marker with your name: before-refactor-2025-10-12-143022.md
With Description
/nav:marker oauth-working "OAuth flow implemented and tested"
Adds description to marker content.
Marker Creation Process
Step 1: Analyze Current State
Scan conversation for:
Active work:
- Current task/feature
- Files being modified
- What's implemented
- What's remaining
Recent context:
- Technical decisions made
- Approaches tried (successful and failed)
- Dependencies added
- Blockers encountered
Next steps:
- What you planned to do next
- Open questions
- Ideas to explore
Step 2: Generate Marker Content
Create comprehensive marker:
# Navigator Context Marker: [Name]
**Created**: 2025-10-12 14:30:22
**Type**: On-demand marker
**Navigator**: .agent/DEVELOPMENT-README.md
---
## 📍 Current Location
**Task**: TASK-123 - Implement OAuth authentication
**Phase**: Integration complete, testing pending
**Files**:
- src/auth/oauth.ts (implemented)
- src/routes/auth.ts (updated)
- tests/auth.test.ts (needs work)
**Progress**: 70% complete
---
## 🎯 What's Done
- ✅ OAuth flow implemented with passport.js
- ✅ JWT token generation working
- ✅ Login/logout endpoints created
- ✅ Session management configured
- ✅ Google OAuth provider integrated
---
## 🔧 Technical Decisions
**OAuth Library**: Chose passport.js over next-auth
- Reason: More control over flow, simpler for our use case
- Trade-off: More manual config, but cleaner integration
**Token Strategy**: JWT in httpOnly cookies
- Reason: XSS protection, no localStorage needed
- Expiration: 7 days, refresh token pattern
**Session Store**: Redis
- Reason: Fast, scalable, easy invalidation
- Config: TTL matches JWT expiration
---
## ⚠️ Challenges & Solutions
**Challenge**: CORS issues with OAuth callback
**Solution**: Added credentials: 'include' and proper CORS headers
**File**: src/middleware/cors.ts
**Challenge**: Token not persisting across requests
**Solution**: Missing httpOnly flag in cookie options
**File**: src/auth/tokens.ts:45
---
## 📝 Next Steps
1. Write comprehensive tests for OAuth flow
- Happy path: successful login
- Error cases: invalid tokens, expired sessions
- Edge cases: concurrent logins, token refresh
2. Add error handling for failed OAuth
- Network errors
- Provider downtime
- Invalid credentials
3. Document OAuth setup in README
- Environment variables needed
- Provider setup instructions
- Local development flow
---
## 🔗 Related Documentation
**Already documented**:
- .agent/system/auth-architecture.md - Auth system design
- .agent/sops/integrations/oauth-setup.md - OAuth provider config
**Needs documentation**:
- Testing strategy for OAuth
- Production deployment checklist
---
## 💡 Ideas to Explore
- Add more OAuth providers (GitHub, Twitter)
- Implement OAuth scope management
- Add "Sign in with" UI component library
- Consider magic link as alternative auth method
---
## 🚫 Don't Load Again
These are already documented, don't reload:
- .agent/tasks/TASK-123-oauth-auth.md
- .agent/system/auth-architecture.md
- Previous markers (if any)
---
## 🔄 Restore Instructions
To resume from this marker:
1. Read this marker:
Read @.agent/.context-markers/oauth-working-2025-10-12-143022.md
2. Continue with: "Write tests for OAuth flow"
**Context restored in ~3k tokens instead of replaying 130k token conversation.**
---
Generated by: /nav:marker oauth-working
Step 3: Save Marker
Create directory if needed:
mkdir -p .agent/.context-markers
Save with naming convention:
Format: [user-name]-YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS.md
Example: oauth-working-2025-10-12-143022.md
Write marker:
Write(
file_path: ".agent/.context-markers/oauth-working-2025-10-12-143022.md"
content: [marker content from Step 2]
)
Step 4: Confirm to User
Show clear confirmation:
✅ Marker saved!
📍 Location: .agent/.context-markers/oauth-working-2025-10-12-143022.md
🔄 To restore this state later:
Read @.agent/.context-markers/oauth-working-2025-10-12-143022.md
💾 Marker size: ~3k tokens
📊 Current session: ~85k tokens
Tip: You can continue working or use /nav:compact to free up space.
Advanced Features
List All Markers
/nav:marker list
Shows all available markers:
📍 Available Context Markers
Recent markers (last 7 days):
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. oauth-working-2025-10-12-143022.md
Created: 2 hours ago
Task: TASK-123 - OAuth authentication
Size: 3.2k tokens
2. before-refactor-2025-10-12-091500.md
Created: 7 hours ago
Task: TASK-122 - Routing refactor
Size: 2.8k tokens
3. day1-complete-2025-10-11-170000.md
Created: yesterday
Task: TASK-121 - User dashboard
Size: 3.5k tokens
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total: 3 markers | Combined size: 9.5k tokens
To restore: Read @.agent/.context-markers/[filename]
To clean up: /nav:marker clean
Clean Old Markers
/nav:marker clean
Interactive cleanup:
🧹 Marker Cleanup
Found 15 markers older than 7 days:
- [list with dates and sizes]
Keep only:
1. Last 7 days (recommended)
2. Last 30 days
3. Keep all, just show me
4. Custom selection
Choice [1-4]:
Compare Markers
/nav:marker diff oauth-working before-refactor
Shows what changed between two markers:
📊 Marker Comparison
From: before-refactor (7 hours ago)
To: oauth-working (2 hours ago)
Changes:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Tasks:
- Completed: TASK-122 (routing refactor)
+ Started: TASK-123 (OAuth auth)
Files Modified:
+ src/auth/oauth.ts (new)
+ src/auth/tokens.ts (new)
~ src/routes/auth.ts (modified)
Decisions Made:
+ Using passport.js for OAuth
+ JWT in httpOnly cookies
+ Redis for session storage
Progress: 30% → 70% (task)
Marker Strategies
Checkpoint Strategy
Create markers at natural checkpoints:
Feature Planning:
/nav:marker planning-complete
Core Implementation:
/nav:marker core-working
Integration:
/nav:marker integration-done
Testing:
/nav:marker tests-passing
Ready for Review:
/nav:marker ready-for-pr
Benefit: Clear progression, easy to resume at any stage
Daily Markers
End each day with a marker:
/nav:marker eod-2025-10-12 "Finished OAuth, need tests tomorrow"
Benefit: Perfect context on Monday for Friday's work
Experiment Markers
Before trying new approaches:
/nav:marker before-experiment
# Try risky refactor
# Doesn't work?
# Restore from marker, try different approach
Benefit: Safe exploration, easy rollback
Decision Markers
After important decisions:
/nav:marker architecture-decision "Chose PostgreSQL over MongoDB"
Benefit: Capture why decisions were made with full context
Marker Best Practices
✅ Do
- Create markers before breaks (lunch, end of day)
- Name markers descriptively (
oauth-workingnotmarker-1) - Add descriptions for important markers
- Clean up old markers monthly
- Use markers as conversation save points
❌ Don't
- Don't create markers every 5 minutes (too granular)
- Don't use generic names (
test,stuff,work) - Don't forget to clean up (markers accumulate)
- Don't rely solely on markers (still commit code!)
Integration with Navigator Workflow
Markers + Compact
Work on feature → /nav:marker feature-done
Continue to polish → Token usage high
/nav:compact
Result: Marker preserved, conversation cleared
Benefit: Markers survive compacts
Markers + Tasks
Start task → Load task doc
Make progress → /nav:marker progress-update
Complete → /nav:update-doc feature TASK-XX
Benefit: Markers complement task documentation
Markers + SOPs
Hit bug → Debug → Solve
/nav:marker bug-solved "Fixed CORS issue with OAuth"
/nav:update-doc sop debugging cors-oauth-fix
Benefit: Markers capture point-in-time, SOPs capture solution
Technical Implementation
Marker Storage
.agent/.context-markers/
├── oauth-working-2025-10-12-143022.md
├── before-refactor-2025-10-12-091500.md
├── day1-complete-2025-10-11-170000.md
└── .gitkeep
Naming: [name]-YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS.md
Size: ~3k tokens each
Git: Ignored by default (in .gitignore)
Marker Format
Required sections:
- Current Location (task, files, progress)
- What's Done (achievements)
- Technical Decisions (with rationale)
- Next Steps (what's remaining)
- Restore Instructions (how to resume)
Optional sections:
- Challenges & Solutions
- Ideas to Explore
- Related Documentation
Examples
Example 1: End of Day Marker
You: "Finished implementing user settings page, need to add tests tomorrow"
You: /nav:marker eod-settings-done
Result:
✅ Marker saved: .agent/.context-markers/eod-settings-done-2025-10-12-170000.md
Tomorrow: Read @.agent/.context-markers/eod-settings-done-2025-10-12-170000.md
Example 2: Before Risky Change
You: "Current routing works. About to refactor to use new router"
You: /nav:marker before-routing-refactor
You: "Refactor the routing system to use express-router"
*After testing...*
You: "The refactor broke auth. Let me restore"
You: Read @.agent/.context-markers/before-routing-refactor.md
You: "Take different approach - migrate gradually"
Example 3: Multi-Day Feature
Monday:
You: /nav:marker day1-foundation "Built database models and API structure"
Tuesday:
You: Read @.agent/.context-markers/day1-foundation.md
You: *continues work*
You: /nav:marker day2-integration "Integrated with frontend, working on auth"
Wednesday:
You: Read @.agent/.context-markers/day2-integration.md
You: *continues work*
You: /nav:marker day3-complete "Feature complete, tests passing"
Success Metrics
Without markers:
- Resume after break: 5-10 min re-explaining context
- Session restart: Lose all context
- Risky changes: No safety net
- Multi-day work: Fragmented understanding
With markers:
- Resume after break: 30 seconds (read marker)
- Session restart: Full context restored
- Risky changes: Rollback point available
- Multi-day work: Continuous context thread
Token efficiency:
- Marker: 3k tokens to restore full context
- Re-explaining: 20-30k tokens of back-and-forth
- Savings: 85-90% fewer tokens to resume
Future Enhancements
Auto-markers:
{
"auto_marker": {
"on_task_complete": true,
"on_break_detected": true,
"every_n_hours": 2
}
}
Marker search:
/nav:marker search "OAuth"
# Returns all markers mentioning OAuth
Marker merge:
/nav:marker merge day1 day2 day3 → feature-complete
# Combines multiple markers into one
Markers transform your AI workflow from stateless to stateful. Never lose context again. 🎯