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Claude Code now compacts long idle sessions before the cache dies
Claude Code 2.1.299 compacts a terminal session past about 200K tokens after roughly 54 minutes idle, before the one-hour prompt cache expires. The changelog lists no price change.
Littlewolf Labs
Claude Code 2.1.299 adds idle compaction in the terminal. A conversation of 200K tokens or more that sits idle for about 54 minutes is compacted before its one-hour prompt cache expires, so the next message does not reprocess the whole session. Lydia Hallie noted the same change on X.
"idleCompaction": false in settings.json turns it off. CLAUDE_CODE_IDLE_COMPACT_MIN_TOKENS changes the 200K floor. The changelog says both need v2.1.290 or later.
What it costs
The changelog lists no price change. The saving is usage: the next message does not reprocess a long idle session.
Should you switch
Leave it on if you walk away from long Claude Code sessions. Turn it off only if you need that idle transcript left intact.
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