Every Claude Code session has a hidden cost — every token in context is billed as input on every turn, and the more accumulates, the worse Claude works.

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Every Claude Code session has a hidden cost — every token in context is billed as input on every turn, and the more accumulates, the worse Claude gets at attending to any of it. This article covers what fills the context window, how compaction works and what it loses, and the practical strategies that actually help — even with the 1M token window now generally available.