COOL & INSIGHTFUL: "Idle compaction" was added to Claude Code TUI in their most recent release (2.1.299).
Each Claude Code session (with at least 200k+ context) will now automatically compact after being idle for ~54 minutes, in order to refresh the 1-hour TTL and prevent the user from incurring the cost of uncached input.
This will save end users a lot of money! Although, with the way Anthropic investor day is going, maybe they should roll this change back? 🤔
Claude Code now compacts large sessions after about 54 idle minutes so the 1-hour prompt cache is refreshed, avoiding the cost of re-reading uncached context windowThe maximum amount of text a model can consider at once — its working memory for the current conversation or task.Full definition → when you return.
Terms in this piece · Glossary
context compaction — Summarizing an agent's earlier conversation to free room in the context window so a long session can keep going.
context window — The maximum amount of text a model can consider at once — its working memory for the current conversation or task.
