The context ring

Every conversation has a limited amount of “memory” — how much of what’s been said your agent can hold in mind at once. The context ring in the status bar shows how full that is.

Reading the ring

The ring fills as a conversation goes on. Early on it’s nearly empty; after a long back-and-forth, or after working with big documents, it fills up. As it gets full it changes colour to warn you — so a glance tells you roughly how much room is left.

How much a conversation can hold depends on the model. Most of the models run at a very large size (1M), so you can go a long way before it fills. See choosing a model for the sizes.

Auto-compact

You don’t have to manage this. When a conversation gets close to full, Hyo automatically compacts it — condensing what’s been said so far into a shorter summary so the conversation can keep going without losing the thread. It happens on its own, and the conversation carries on.

If you’d rather tidy up yourself before that point, type /compact any time to do it manually.

Note

Context is separate from your plan usage. The ring is about one conversation’s memory; the usage meters are about your overall Claude plan. A full ring doesn’t cost you plan usage — it just means it’s time to compact.