# HarnessLink 17.5.84 release notes

1 change, released Oct 13, 2026.

### Changed

- Sessions keep their full context by default. `context.handoffAt: auto` no longer means half the window or 100k tokens: HarnessLink starts no compaction and asks for no handoff, and omp, Claude Code and Codex compact on their own when their context needs it. Every compaction still saves a handoff first, and omp's still uses HarnessLink's summary. The early compaction disrupted work and saved few tokens in practice. A token count or a share (`"40%"`) brings back the earlier behaviour. The session-start context no longer tells the model to keep sessions lean and clear freely.

Update HarnessLink and every installed harness to its current release:

hnl update

New machine? Install with:

curl -fsSL https://harnesslink.sh/install.sh | bash

[Newer: 17.5.85](https://harnesslink.sh/releases/17.5.85) · [Older: 17.5.83](https://harnesslink.sh/releases#v17.5.83) · [All releases](https://harnesslink.sh/releases) · [Atom feed](https://harnesslink.sh/releases.atom)
