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1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

claude.com

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Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#41

Post by SequoiaHope »

ogig wrote: post #33
MikeNotThePope wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it ever useful to have a context window that full? I try to keep usage under 40%, or about 80k tokens, to avoid what Dex Horthy calls the dumb zone in his research-plan-implement approach. Works well for me so far. No vibes allowed: https://youtu.be/rmvDxxNubIg?is=adMmmKdVxraYO2yQ

When running long autonomous tasks it is quite frequent to fill the context, even several times. You are out of the loop so it just happens if Claude goes a bit in circles, or it needs to iterate over CI reds, or the task was too complex. I'm hoping a long context > small context + 2 compacts.

Yep I have an autonomous task where it has been running for 8 hours now and counting. It compacts context all the time. I’m pretty skeptical of the quality in long sessions like this so I have to run a follow on session to critically examine everything that was done. Long context will be great for this.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#42

Post by apetresc »

wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #14

The weirdest thing about Claude pricing is their 5X pricing plan is 5 times the cost of the previous plan. Normally buying the bigger plan gives some sort of discount. At Claude, it's just "5 times more usage 5 times more cost, there you go".

Those sorts of volume discounts are what you do when you're trying to incentivize more consumption. Anthropic already has more demand then they're logistically able to serve, at the moment (look at their uptime chart, it's barely even 1 9 of reliability). For them, 1 user consuming 5 units of compute is less attractive than 5 users consuming 1 unit.

They would probably implement _diminishing_-value pricing if pure pricing efficiency was their only concern.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#43

Post by auggierose »

radley wrote: post #37
auggierose wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the plan they want you to buy. It is a pricing strategy to get you to buy the 20x plan.

5x Max is the plan I use because the Pro plan limits out so quickly. I don't use Claude full-time, but I do need Claude Code, and I do prefer to use Opus for everything because it's focused and less chatty.

Sure, I get it. For me a 2x Max would be ideal and usually enough. Now, guess why they are not offering that?

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#44

Post by MikeNotThePope »

ogig wrote: post #33
MikeNotThePope wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it ever useful to have a context window that full? I try to keep usage under 40%, or about 80k tokens, to avoid what Dex Horthy calls the dumb zone in his research-plan-implement approach. Works well for me so far. No vibes allowed: https://youtu.be/rmvDxxNubIg?is=adMmmKdVxraYO2yQ

When running long autonomous tasks it is quite frequent to fill the context, even several times. You are out of the loop so it just happens if Claude goes a bit in circles, or it needs to iterate over CI reds, or the task was too complex. I'm hoping a long context > small context + 2 compacts.

I haven't figured out how to make use of tasks running that long yet, or maybe I just don't have a good use case for it yet. Or maybe I'm too cheap to pay for that many API calls.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#45

Post by SkyPuncher »

MikeNotThePope wrote: post #20
dimitri-vs wrote: post #3

The big change here is: > Standard pricing now applies across the full 1M window for both models, with no long-context premium. Media limits expand to 600 images or PDF pages. For Claude Code users this is huge - assuming coherence remains strong past 200k tok.

Is it ever useful to have a context window that full? I try to keep usage under 40%, or about 80k tokens, to avoid what Dex Horthy calls the dumb zone in his research-plan-implement approach. Works well for me so far. No vibes allowed: https://youtu.be/rmvDxxNubIg?is=adMmmKdVxraYO2yQ

Yes. I've recently become a convert.

For me, it's less about being able to look back -800k tokens. It's about being able to flow a conversation for a lot longer without forcing compaction. Generally, I really only need the most recent ~50k tokens, but having the old context sitting around is helpful.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#46

Post by chatmasta »

dimitri-vs wrote: post #3

The big change here is: > Standard pricing now applies across the full 1M window for both models, with no long-context premium. Media limits expand to 600 images or PDF pages. For Claude Code users this is huge - assuming coherence remains strong past 200k tok.

So a picture is worth 1,666 words?

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#48

Post by apetresc »

aliljet wrote: post #11

Are there evals showing how this improves outputs?

Improves outputs relative to what? Compared to previous contexts of 1M, it improves outputs by allowing them to exist (because previously you couldn't exceed 200K). Compared to contexts of <200K, it degrades outputs rather than improves them, but that's what you'd expect from longer contexts. It's still better than compaction, which was previously the alternative.

Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6

#50

Post by scwoodal »

dimitri-vs wrote: post #39
MikeNotThePope wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it ever useful to have a context window that full? I try to keep usage under 40%, or about 80k tokens, to avoid what Dex Horthy calls the dumb zone in his research-plan-implement approach. Works well for me so far. No vibes allowed: https://youtu.be/rmvDxxNubIg?is=adMmmKdVxraYO2yQ

It's kind of like having a 16 gallon gas tank in your car versus a 4 gallon tank. You don't need the bigger one the majority of the time, but the range anxiety that comes with the smaller one and annoyance when you DO need it is very real.

Except after 4 gallons it might as well be pure oil, mucking everything up.
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