Files
claude-foundations/claude/ask-minimax-usage.md
Paul O'Reilly df243cd953 docs: memory + usage docs for review-minimax and ci-triage-minimax offloads
Four memory docs (2 skills, 2 wrapper scripts) + MEMORY.md index lines;
ask-minimax-usage.md gains both delegation targets. Records the gac
v0.0.2.10 token-discovery gap (needs GITEA_TOKEN_FILE pointed at
ai_admin/token; the wrapper defaults it).

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Ku87DDWwbJkTx6SuV3sQDc
2026-09-11 13:48:22 +12:00

2.4 KiB

Context Offloading with /ask-minimax

/ask-minimax delegates a task to a MiniMax M3 sub-session that reads and writes files directly. Only a short summary flows back — file contents never load into this session. Reach for it when the file payload dwarfs the answer payload.

Use it for

  • Summarising large files (logs, dumps, generated reports >500 lines)
  • Extracting specific facts from multiple files or long reference docs
  • Generating big files (migrations, config bundles, fixtures, large docs) where the content does not need to flow back
  • Format conversion of large files (CSV↔JSON, XML↔YAML, etc.)
  • Bulk find-and-extract across many files where only the matches matter
  • Broad read-only codebase exploration ("where does X live", "how is Y wired up") — use the specialised /explore-minimax skill, which enforces read-only, requires file:line citations, and falls back to the Explore agent on failure
  • First-pass code review of agent-produced branches — use the specialised /review-minimax skill (findings file, credential gates, adjudicated in-session; pre-filter before /code-review, never final authority)
  • CI failure triage of failed Gitea Actions runs — use the specialised /ci-triage-minimax skill (gac log fetch + redaction; failing step/cause file; canonical after gac tail --until run-complete exits 1)

Skip it for

  • Iterative design or debugging — the main session needs the content in context
  • Small files (under a few hundred lines) — overhead exceeds savings
  • Tasks where you will immediately re-read the result to act on it
  • Anything requiring tools MiniMax cannot use (web fetch, MCP, browser, agent dispatch)
  • Architecture or quality-sensitive output — MiniMax is for grunt work, not nuanced reasoning
  • Anything touching secrets/, local_secrets/, or credential material — never hand secret-adjacent paths to a third-party model

How to delegate

Pass file paths, not file contents. If you read the input files yourself before invoking, you have already paid the token cost the skill exists to avoid.

Failure handling

MiniMax intermittently returns invalid system role and other transient errors. Retry once. If it fails again, fall back to a Claude subagent with the same brief — Sonnet for file-heavy grunt work, Opus for reasoning-grade consults. Never silently drop the task. Log new error shapes to the project's memory/gotchas-*.md.