Your Guide to Surviving Claude Code Context Compaction

Context compaction is the part of Claude Code that nobody explains well. Here's what actually happens and how to stop it from wrecking your work. What context compaction is Claude Code has a context window limit. When you get close to it, it automatically compacts: it summarizes what happened in the session and keeps only that summary plus the most recent messages. The problem: the summary loses specificity. Decisions made three messages ago become "the team decided to use JWT." Patterns established in code become "the code follows standard practices." The nuance is gone. If you were mid-task when compaction hit, Claude now has a vague summary of what it was doing — not the full context. It may continue in a different direction, repeat work, or ask you questions you already answered. What you can do before compaction hits 1. Write explicit checkpoints. Before a long session, put your current state in a file Claude can read: # tasks/current-task.md goal: "Add email validation to signup