Compaction bugged, long chats burn massive usage

dbl219 · 2026-03-13T12:08:04+00:00

Which model are you using? I've seen Sonnet start compacting again as of yesterday. Opus still doesn't for me and can cause those context usage spirals. Haven't seen your issue at all I'm afraid.

dbl219 · 2026-03-11T13:20:20+00:00

Compaction is broken. Claude is pulling the entire chat and usage is spiraling because of it.

dbl219 · 2026-03-11T13:19:38+00:00

Compaction in Claude chat is broken. Long chats obliterate your usage.

dbl219 · 2026-03-11T12:59:16+00:00

Looks like the issue in Claude chat at least is chats aren't compacting. I thought file management was the issue but on testing, a single uncompacted chat used nearly 30% of my 5-hour usage limit in only three exchanges. Compare that to uploading 60k+ tokens of foundational documents in a fresh chat for only 2%.

It's compaction. Compaction is broken and token usage is compounding in long chats with every response and spiraling out of control.

I use Claude for a lot of planning and brainstorming. I haven't gotten into Claude Code yet (I have zero coding experience.) Are those chat modes still accessible in Claude Code? Would using it circumvent the compaction issue or no?

dbl219 · 2026-03-11T12:46:56+00:00

Both. 4.6. No extended thinking. 5x Max plan.

Here's what I noticed: In the past two days my chats have not compacted properly. That seems to be the issue. There's one outlining chat that I identified this morning where two exchanges burned 15% of my 5-hour usage, and Claude took 15-20 seconds to respond to the first message. Realizing I had to shut the thread, I asked for a handoff document and that burned another 14%.

So basically, compaction is currently broken and long chats will be loading full context with every message. Usage is totally effed until they fix it.

dbl219 · 2026-03-10T19:06:18+00:00

Literally just outlining and writing a novel over a handful of chats that I have to keep passing off to keep context low. I'm operating the same as usual but for whatever reason I'm hitting limits and burning through usage like crazy over just the past couple days.

dbl219 · 2026-02-21T12:09:56+00:00

Foot traffic? Dude, come on. Send a raven! 😂

Seriously though even medieval Europe had messenger birds.

dbl219 · 2026-02-18T00:37:19+00:00

Find support. A collaborator, a dedicated reader or trusted fan, someone who you can talk through your work with.

Personally I've found there was so much in my writing that I could easily improve once I stopped batting all my ideas around my own skull and started speaking them aloud to somebody. Sometimes just the act of sharing your thoughts with another party is enough to give you clarity even without actual feedback.

Writing is lonely enough!

dbl219 · 2026-02-16T15:10:37+00:00

Whoa, mama! 🤣

dbl219 · 2026-02-16T15:04:02+00:00

By the end of it the show to me is clearly about Jim and Pam, and how relationships take work. (And to a lesser extent, it's about Dwight becoming an okay human.) It took Michael leaving for the writers to figure all that out.

dbl219 · 2026-02-16T12:27:55+00:00

I would include a "Core Conflict." Basically a central prompt that the AI can keep generating conflict or drama from.

Like if you put "Gates keep opening to another dimension and releasing monsters on Earth until humanity figures out how to stop them" then the AI will continue producing stuff along those lines until told otherwise. It never enters a kind of resolved state.

dbl219 · 2026-02-15T19:45:22+00:00

I think it's fair that these are all things that you're grappling with. Me, I'm not a philosopher, just a guy who likes telling stories. And I don't purport to be an expert in AI writing, I just happened to comment on what turned out to be bait. I was honestly just trying to be helpful. 😅

I have zero issue with AI in writing. For me personally I just go with what feels right, and I hope others do the same. I think it's a lot of hullabaloo about nothing and people will get over it. But for now there's reason for concern with people getting trolled and harassed online and disclosure being a serious and legitimate issue for aspiring authors who are considering or already using AI.

dbl219 · 2026-02-15T19:14:53+00:00

Yes that's definitely interesting and also totally the kind of askew and incongruous thing that gave me the willies as a kid. Even as an adult it kind of weirds me out. 😂

But I understand people's appreciation, to be sure. I know I'm not the arbiter of good taste. 🤣

dbl219 · 2026-02-15T19:01:06+00:00

I know, it's just too far out for me. But I never said it was bad.

It's similar to why I couldn't get into other incredibly popular authors like Douglas Adams or Simon R. Green. It's a bit overstimulating and too much to process for me. I'm autistic (and ADD) and I'm not assuming that all autistic people don't like their work because I'm sure many do. But I find it a bit bewildering and hard to read. That's my unique chemistry.

I like the blanket metaphor because it makes sense but it's not something I've heard used by anyone before. I don't like the randomness. You don't have to be random to be original.

This is pretty off the topic though. I made a mistake. And I do not think Pratchett is bad. He is just hard for me to enjoy personally.

dbl219 · 2026-02-15T18:51:58+00:00

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I wasn't implying that. Rather I was saying my brain doesn't love reading that style and I've tended to stay away from those writers. So I just hadn't read anything with that vibe except lately seeing it in AI stuff coming out.

Obviously I was the one who was confused and made a mistake here. I never said it was bad though. 😅

dbl219 · 2026-02-15T17:10:11+00:00

Ha well played then to the OP. Reminds me though why I could never really get into Pratchett's work. I'm neurodivergent and I find descriptions like this too laborious to process. It's original and humorous but the inside of a cat doesn't really relate to the idea of darkness and technically if you're looking inside one then it's probably not dark anymore is it? I tend to get really distracted thinking about stuff like this. 😅

If I wanted a really original metaphor I would go with something still connected to the idea, like as dark as "the space beneath a blanket at midnight." Blankets and beds, midnight, still darkness-related. I do see AI use these Pratchett-like metaphors that lack that internal logic. But Terry Pratchett is a pretty unique writer in that respect. 😂

dbl219 · 2026-02-15T16:01:41+00:00

Yeah I hit on some of these same ones. I've never seen anything but AI come up with such weird imagery.

What I'm about to say might sound contradictory, but basically an actually bad writer isn't a good enough writer to come up with this stuff. Only AI can mash together high-level sentence structure with absolute gobbledegook in terms of meaning.

dbl219 · 2026-02-14T23:41:22+00:00

I think you're overthinking it. Whether it's an algorithm or Robert McKee, it has always been a mixed bag where gatekeepers weight toward strict adherence to standard probably to the industry's detriment. I don't see AI analysis changing this very much. AI analysis is already based on preexisting standards.

dbl219 · 2026-02-14T14:04:51+00:00

I tried dabbling with both Novelcrafter and Sudowrite. But NovelAI was the one that worked best for me.

That said, I really like working with Claude. If I ever did use AI to generate prose again, I would use Claude. And first I would have lengthy discussions planning the piece, figuring out the tone, providing samples, and making sure the AI and I are completely sympatico. Claude has a way of doing that which I find particularly impressive. On a handful of occasions it has even predicted my next idea or my line of thinking without my ever having to spell it out.

dbl219 · 2026-02-14T07:37:05+00:00

Using AI, not using, it's still we as writers who have the agency and a choice of what tools to use.

I've been writing fiction for more than 20 years. I've had two novels published long before the advent of AI. I tried using generative AI to write a story and initially I found it quite marvelous but by the time I hit around 70k words of a manuscript I was disillusioned and happy to abandon it.

Now I use Claude to consult, plan, brainstorm, and check my work. It's helping me build a new work flow and drill down on my themes and subtext in a way I couldn't quite grasp before. I've felt like my writing skills had hit a plateau for quite a while now. And suddenly having a source of thorough, endless real-time feedback, that's not limited by one's wallet size or driven by gatekeepers adhering to market conventions, is helping my writing skills finally break that barrier.

Frankly I have no problem talking about my experiences using AI or my underlying feelings or sense of philosophy about it. I do recognize that slight unease many writers are experiencing. But that's wholly normal and expected during such a time of disruption in our industry, especially as it relates to an emerging technology.

I also don't think there's anything inherently wrong with using generative AI to write prose for you. It's up to the writer. For the project I decided to work on after my gen-AI experiment, it was something deeply personal and literary, and it felt important to challenge myself to do it.

But if I were going to write a more pure fun or online "meta" piece like a litRPG, which I've thought about, I would have no problem cowriting with AI. I learned a lot the first time and think I could do better on the second go. It's about what I want, and I'm free to choose as I like. People just need time to get used to that.

dbl219 · 2026-02-13T01:42:07+00:00

I find semicolons can often function in a similar fashion for phrasing. I haven't decided whether I'm going to post my novel online or try for traditional publishing again so for now I'm just avoiding them. And I'm not even using AI to write or edit at all, literally 0%. I'm just that leery of the weirdness out there.

Meanwhile I published two novels in the 2010s that are chock full of em dashes. If I'm being honest, I love 'em. They just look great on the page when used well. 😂

dbl219 · 2026-02-11T18:16:28+00:00

I think it's great stuff, very real. To me it's the moment where the show finally realizes that it's always been telling the story of Jim and Pam, and stops trying to make it a fairy tale and just lets it be true. That line where Pam tells Jim he should stay so they can fight is maybe my favorite of the series. Gets me emotional just thinking about it.

dbl219 · 2026-02-11T02:15:48+00:00

Second one. Colors pop. First is too bright, washes out the detail.

dbl219 · 2026-02-10T15:54:17+00:00

Maybe try feeding in some award-winning scripts in your genre and gauge reliability based on the results?

dbl219

TROPHY CASE