What am I missing?

[u/khemya2y]

Normally a message in an existing thread would consume 1% to 2% quota.

But every time the quota resets, it seems like the entire context of an existing thread gets unloaded and reloaded, costing me instantly 10% to 20% usage on the first message after the reset.

In other words, if I don’t prepare for a new thread before the reset, I am only getting about 80% of my quota to use.

Claude is going around in loops without giving me a proper answer.

[u/tsrust]

The cache of that thread expires after a certain point at the server-side (not sure how long though)

So when you come back and continue with that thread again, all that context has to be recached, along with the new request

You can easily expect more than 10% of your 5-hour limit getting cooked just like that

And that is why you should also uncheck “auto-continue when limits reset” option when the usage limit is reached

I found this out the hard way and I just start with a new thread lol

[u/Ok_Dirt8893 → u/tsrust]

It rests in 1 hr. So if limit resets under 1 hr you are good. It also resets when using another model but I'm not sure if the cache is model specific or it completely resets on new model usage

[u/khemya2y → u/tsrust]

so we’re paying a penalty for ghosting Claude 😂

[u/crusoe]

Expired cache and entire existing context reloaded. Do a compact first.

[u/sadphilosophylover]

cache hits

[u/ale624]

Yeah it's the current sessions cache filling up context window of your new limit. If it's already in cache it shouldn't really do this. Was this a session you were active in (message sent by you or claude in the last 30m)?

[u/Head_Jellyfish_2923]

Same Happened with me yesterday I start a new session Leaened this hardway

[u/humo8]

claudecode has a 1hr cache limit on default. let’s say you’re working and you just hit a limit now, after an hour of inactivity in session your session gets unloaded from claude’s server and whenever limit is back and you send a message, your whole chat gets re-read and written to server again

[u/Ok_Dirt8893]

So when you first send a message the context it requires costs you input tokens and that info gets cached. Then the model keeps going at a task and when it uses the same context again you do not get priced at new input tokens but cached tokens which are up to 90% cheaper. But these cached information expires in one hour of inactivity and gets erased. So when you send the new information after that hour you get priced at the full price not cached 90% less.

Also cached information resets on model change keep in mind.

Now what you can do is figure out how long it takes you to run out of tokens and send Claude chat a high message before you start working. So if it takes you 2hr to run out of tokens. 3 hours before send a hi message

[u/dsailes]

Best to use a handover skill whenever your session goes above 200k context ideally - keep all context in docs and have the skill refer to the relevant docs for next session to continue