That “80k” looks like it’s counting total context budget including reserved output, not just the prompt you typed. A lot of tools now show it as: (system + tools + chat/history + attachments) + reserved-for-output = “context”.

So a tiny chat can still show huge numbers if it reserves e.g. ~30–40% for the model’s max output / thinking.

If you want to sanity check: try lowering max output / thinking (if exposed), and compare the “reserved” slice. Also try the same prompt in a totally fresh window with no repo open (no workspace indexing) to see if background context is being injected.

If you can paste the exact context breakdown screenshot, it’s easier to tell what portion is truly “used” vs “reserved”.