---
id: "action-blank-slate-agents"
type: "action-item"
source_timestamps: ["00:46:39", "00:51:30"]
tags: ["prompt-engineering", "context-management"]
related: ["concept-procedural-vs-ability-skills", "claim-procedural-over-abilities", "contrarian-disable-model-skills"]
outcome: "Prevents context window bloat, reduces hallucinated workflows, and keeps the human firmly in control of the agent's actions."
speakers: ["Matt Pocock"]
---
# Start Agents with a Blank Slate

## Action

Delete all default skills and plugins from your agent's context. Add back only specific procedural skills when explicitly needed.

## Why

See [[concept-procedural-vs-ability-skills]], [[claim-procedural-over-abilities]], and [[contrarian-disable-model-skills]]. Bloated context windows and autonomous skill invocation lead to hallucinated workflows and wasted tokens.

## Expected outcome

Prevents context window bloat, reduces hallucinated workflows, and keeps the human firmly in control of the agent's actions.

## Concrete moves

- Strip default tool/plugin sets from your agent's startup config.
- Curate a small set of slash-command-invoked procedural skills (e.g., from [[entity-matt-pocock-skills]]).
- Explicitly disable model auto-invocation for those skills.