This is fantastic. I keep having to save to memory with instructions and then tell it to restore to get anywhere on long running tasks.
1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
61–70 of 565 posts
Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
#62The 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
That video is bizarre. Such a heavy breather.
Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
#63can someone tell me how to make this instruction work in claude code "put high level description of the change you are making in log.md after every change" works perfectly in codex but i just cant get calude to do it automatically. I always have to ask "did you update the log".
I imagine you can do this with a hook that fires every time claude stops responding:
Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
All of those things are smells imo, you should be very weary of any code output from a task that causes that much thrashing to occur. In most cases it’s better to rewind or reset and adapt your prompt to avoid the looping (which usually means a more narrowly defined scope)
Wary, not weary. Wary: cautious. Weary: tired.
Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did u use the API or subscription?
Max subscription and "extra usage" billing
That sounds high. I mean, if you paid for the 20x max plan you’d be capped at around 200/month and at least for me as a professional engineer running a few Claude’s in parallel all day, I haven’t exceeded the plans limits.
Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
#66can someone tell me how to make this instruction work in claude code "put high level description of the change you are making in log.md after every change" works perfectly in codex but i just cant get calude to do it automatically. I always have to ask "did you update the log".
Backup your config and ask Claude. I’ve done this for all kinds of things like mcp and agent config.
Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
#67Is there a writeup anywhere on what this means for effective context? I think that many of us have found that even when the context window was 100k tokens the actual usable window was smaller than that. As you got closer to 100k performance degraded substantially. I'm assuming that is still true but what does the curve look like?
Isn't transformer attention quadratic in complexity in terms of context size? In order to achieve 1M token context I think these models have to be employing a lot of shortcuts. I'm not an expert but maybe this explains context rot.
Nope, there’s no tricks unless there’s been major architectural shifts I missed. The rot doesn’t come from inference tricks to try to bring down quadratic complexity of the KV cache. Task performance problems are generally a training problem - the longer and larger the data set, the fewer examples you have to train on it. So how do you train the model to behave well - that’s where the tricks are. I believe most of it relies on synthetically generated data if I’m not mistaken, which explains the rot.
Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
#68I notice Claude steadily consuming less tokens, especially with tool calling every week too
Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
#69The 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
After running a context window up high, probably near 70% on opus 4.6 High and watching it take 20% bites out of my 5hr quota per prompt I've been experimenting with dumping context after completing a task. Seems to be working ok. I wonder if I was running into the long context premium. Would that apply to Pro subs or is just relevant to api pricing?
Re: 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
#70Claude Code 2.1.75 now no longer delineates between base Opus and 1M Opus: it's the same model. Oddly, I have Pro where the change supposedly only for Max+ but am still seeing this to be case. EDIT: Don't think Pro has access to it, a typical prompt just hit the context limit. The removal of extra pricing beyond 200k tokens may be Anthropic's salvo in the agent wars against GPT 5.4's 1M window and extra pricing for t…
I have Max 20x and they're still separate on 2.1.75.