1d • General discussion
Context Compaction - A Lesson Learned/Question
So I was using Claude Code to create an n8n workflow for a routine/app over the weekend. Surprisingly, the workflow that I figured would be rather straightforward and simple needed multiple iterative updates and fixes. At one point, CC came back and stopped the work altogether for an hour because I had reached a limit. What limit?
It turns out because I had been working on this workflow for hours in a single session, the length of context that CC was maintaining reached its limit, which it turns out is 200K tokens (https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8606394-how-large-is-the-context-window-on-paid-claude-plans). So it kicked me off the session (a well deserved break for me as well) and compacted the session summary so it can retain the key things about the work in progress.
After that, I became aware of an indicator in the chat window that showed % context used (or something like that). So I asked CC to automatically compact the session, if it reached 80%, save this request to the CLAUDE.md file, and also in its memory, but do each compaction prior to starting any work that may exceed the limit and stop the work. It failed to do it automatically and proactively the few times, so I had to do it manually and remind CC. I asked CC to create and update a WIP summary pertaining to the project so I can come back to it to see the changes made, but it created something called STATUS file and kept it outside of the project file.
I guess this lengthy post is so that I can share a lesson learned about context length that I never knew about before. But has anyone encountered a situation like this? How have you managed it? How can I manage WIP and STATUS without unnecessarily duplicating things?
Cheers,
Roger
3
3 comments
Context Compaction - A Lesson Learned/Question
powered by
skool.com/ai-for-life-3967
Claude Code lessons for Mac users. Operators share automation frameworks that work in production. Discover the highest-ROI automation opportunities.
Suggested communities
Powered by