The session is warm, thirty files are in context, and the run stops. You hit the usage limit.
The reflex is to wait for the reset. Before that, four commands are worth running, and the order matters because each one buys you something different. There is also a fifth command that gets recommended constantly and does not exist.
First: how much is actually left?
/usageShows token usage and cost for the session. Run it before anything else, because the answer changes what you do next. If you are at the edge of the window, compressing helps. If you are far past it, nothing you type will help and you are waiting.
/cost is an alias for /usage, not a second command with different output. If you have been running both hoping for more information, you have been running the same thing twice.
Second: what is filling the context?
/contextRenders current context usage as a coloured grid. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that tells you whether compressing will help at all.
A context filled with one enormous file behaves differently from a context filled with two hundred small exchanges. The first is fixed by removing the file. The second is fixed by summarising. You cannot tell which you have without looking.
Third: compress before you delete
/compactFrees context by summarising the conversation so far. You keep the thread of what you were doing and lose the verbatim detail.
This is the highest-value command in the list, and the one worth reaching for before anything destructive. Most sessions that feel stuck are not out of quota, they are out of room.
Still stuck: two options that cost you something
| Command | What it does | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
/model | Switches the model, and saves it as the default for new sessions | Different model, different behaviour. And it persists, so remember you changed it |
/clear | Starts a new conversation with empty context | Everything. The full context you built is gone |
/clear is last for a reason. It always works and it always costs you the session.
/usage-credits does not exist. It comes up repeatedly in answers about hitting the limit, including in answers generated by AI assistants. It is not in the Anthropic command reference. The usage-related commands are /usage and its alias /cost. Typing the other one just wastes a turn.
Why this keeps happening
Every command above manages a scarcity. /compact exists because context is finite. /usage exists because the budget is metered. /clear exists as the escape hatch when the first two were not enough.
That is a reasonable design for a metered product. It is also why the failure lands at the worst possible moment: not when you start, but forty minutes in, when the context you built is exactly the thing that became expensive.
The alternative is not a better /compact. It is not having to run it. On Verboo Code the models run on dedicated GPU with unlimited tokens, so the long session that got you here is just a long session, and the fifth attempt costs the same as the first.
Until then: /usage, /context, /compact, and only then /model or /clear. In that order, you will usually get the session back.
Commands verified against the official Anthropic documentation on 3 September 2026.
