diff --git a/src/agent/runner.rs b/src/agent/runner.rs
index 6259db3..ec69412 100644
--- a/src/agent/runner.rs
+++ b/src/agent/runner.rs
@@ -825,11 +825,11 @@ impl Agent {
         };
         dbg_log!("[journal] cutoff_idx={}", cutoff_idx);
 
-        // Walk backwards from cutoff, accumulating entries within 5% of context
+        // Walk backwards from cutoff, accumulating entries within 15% of context
         let count = |s: &str| self.tokenizer.encode_with_special_tokens(s).len();
         let context_window = crate::thought::context::context_window();
-        let journal_budget = context_window * 5 / 100;
-        dbg_log!("[journal] budget={} tokens ({}*5%)", journal_budget, context_window);
+        let journal_budget = context_window * 15 / 100;
+        dbg_log!("[journal] budget={} tokens ({}*15%)", journal_budget, context_window);
 
         let mut entries = Vec::new();
         let mut total_tokens = 0;
diff --git a/src/thought/context.rs b/src/thought/context.rs
index 98cdd4c..3146cd3 100644
--- a/src/thought/context.rs
+++ b/src/thought/context.rs
@@ -20,9 +20,10 @@ pub fn context_window() -> usize {
     crate::config::get().api_context_window
 }
 
-/// Context budget in tokens: 60% of the model's context window.
+/// Context budget in tokens: 80% of the model's context window.
+/// The remaining 20% is reserved for model output.
 fn context_budget_tokens() -> usize {
-    context_window() * 60 / 100
+    context_window() * 80 / 100
 }
 
 /// Dedup and trim conversation entries to fit within the context budget.
@@ -61,11 +62,9 @@ pub fn trim_entries(
     let identity_cost = count(&context.system_prompt)
         + context.personality.iter().map(|(_, c)| count(c)).sum::<usize>();
     let journal_cost: usize = context.journal.iter().map(|e| count(&e.content)).sum();
-    let reserve = max_tokens / 4;
     let available = max_tokens
         .saturating_sub(identity_cost)
-        .saturating_sub(journal_cost)
-        .saturating_sub(reserve);
+        .saturating_sub(journal_cost);
 
     let msg_costs: Vec<usize> = deduped.iter()
         .map(|e| msg_token_count(tokenizer, e.message())).collect();