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    "story_id": "mp-2026-09-01-006",
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    "headline": "Equal Token Budgets Delivered Unequal Memory",
    "slug": "equal-token-budgets-delivered-unequal-memory",
    "dek": "A coding-agent study separates stored state, delivered context, management work and task outcome instead of treating memory as one number.",
    "summary": "A coding-agent study separates stored state, delivered context, management work and task outcome instead of treating memory as one number.",
    "body_text": "Across 55 archived coding-agent trajectories, instructions, artifacts, tool outputs and agent-generated state showed different retention and compression patterns. Object-aware compression and retrieval policies exposed a second problem: gains calibrated on one set of tasks did not necessarily transfer, while nominally equal token budgets hid differences in delivered context and management cost. A real-system replay surfaced serving limits as well. The evidence is a focused trajectory study, but it argues for measuring memory by semantic role and operational effect.",
    "why_it_matters": "A coding-agent study separates stored state, delivered context, management work and task outcome instead of treating memory as one number.",
    "limitations": [
      "Object-aware compression and retrieval policies exposed a second problem: gains calibrated on one set of tasks did not necessarily transfer, while nominally equal token budgets hid differences in delivered context and management cost."
    ],
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        "qualification": "Object-aware compression and retrieval policies exposed a second problem: gains calibrated on one set of tasks did not necessarily transfer, while nominally equal token budgets hid differences in delivered context and management cost."
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    "tags": [
      "coding agents",
      "working memory",
      "evaluation"
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  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-09-01-006",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2608.31057",
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      "published_at": "2026-08-31T12:34:51.000-04:00",
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    "name": "The Machine Press",
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  "cite_this_report": {
    "title": "Equal Token Budgets Delivered Unequal Memory",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-09-01T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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