I have come to like session limits, they help me take a break. But it took a lot to get here.
For anyone using Claude Code (or Codex, or Cursor, or GH Copilot), session context is gold dust. It's a hard limit with Claude Code, softer with the others. No work once the limit is reached. The more you pay, the larger your limit.
I believe people go through five distinct stages of handling 'the limit'.
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Stage 1 - Disbelief. Start and the session's gone. What did I do wrong? Surely there's more to the tool than this. Let's try after the session renews.
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Stage 2 - Measurement. Find out how to set a status bar showing the limits. Track doing what uses how much context. Remember to 'save memory' once you've crossed 80%.
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Stage 3 - Education. Experiment with models. A few minutes of research with Opus = A full app with Haiku (of course needing Opus to fix it). Which model does what best. Opus for the plan (make it as detailed as possible), Sonnet for the code, Haiku for any information. Make Opus write the test cases, Sonnet to run and analyse the failures.
I've seen this before with Copilot as well. And on production systems. Models behave differently, and cost differently. Optimization needed for both.
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Stage 4 - Betrayal. There are now explicit feedback md files for doing different things, to save context. How to fix bugs, how to research, how to design UI, etc. Skills for different things. And Claude Code goes and ignores it all. Runs the full test suite multiple times to 'hope' for a bug resolution trying different stop-gap fixes. 10 minutes of 'auto-edit' and the session is gone. Bug still not fixed. Code a mess.
So now you revise the start-up instructions again. 10% context used up every session before anything is done so that it follows all instructions.
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Stage 5 - Zen. Session plan is clear in my mind before we start. This one will use up the limit in about 2 hours. Plan for non-Claude-Code work and a break after that. I already know what's going into the TODO for the next session. And I have a book ready to read in that break.
In my first job, I used to be so engrossed in code that colleagues would tell me they shook my chair to go for lunch and I didn't respond. The limit helps me now.
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Most things I see here about session limits is how to avoid them or optimize for them. There's something more interesting here.
This tool that doesn't really sleep is helping us take breaks. This is a model we're going to have to get used to for a long time.
Go ahead, plan that break.
#ClaudeCode #WorkCodeBalance #AITools