Menu advice

TL;DR: For each active session, the menu combines context size and cache warmth, then gives one action. Find your row below and do what it says.

"Active" means the session had any activity (subagents count) in the last 30 min (active_window_minutes).

Per-session decision table

Defaults: threshold T = 150k, 2T = 300k. The first matching row wins.

#	Context	Cache now	Level	Do this
1	> 2T	cold	🔴 bad	Write a handoff note, then /clear. Summarising a cold, huge context costs more than restarting.
2	> 2T	warm	🔴 bad	/compact with a focus note now, while the cache is warm.
3	> T	cold	🟠 warn	Don't /compact (it would reprocess everything). /clear and resume from a summary.
4	> T	warm	🟠 warn	/compact at the next task boundary.
5	≤ T	cold	🟠 warn	Next time reply sooner, or /compact before you step away.
6	≤ T	warm	🟢 ok	Keep going.

"Cache now" comes from Cache TTL: idle time compared with the TTL.

A session past ctx_smart_tokens (the smart zone) additionally gets a 🔵 info row — "answer quality may be degrading past this point." It's additive to whichever row above already matched, never replaces it, and it does not change the menu-bar severity dot.

Today warnings

These need at least 20 requests today (min_today_requests_to_judge).

Warning	Trigger	Do this
Cache hit low	hit < 85%	Don't edit CLAUDE.md or switch models mid-session. Both reset the cache.
Cold restarts	≥ 3 today	Reply before the cache expires (5 min API / 1h plan)
Big-context spend	> 60% of spend above T	One session per task. /clear between topics.

Plan limits (D)

Read directly from Claude Code's own statusline.json. Nothing is calculated.

5h or weekly usage	Level
≥ 80%	🟠 warn
≥ 90%	🔴 bad

The values are marked "as of HH:MM" when the snapshot is more than 15 min old.

All thresholds in one place

All of these are in config.json:

ctx_big_tokens               150000
warn_cache_hit_below         0.85
warn_big_ctx_share_above     0.6
warn_cold_restarts_at_least  3
warn_limit_pct_at_least      80
min_today_requests_to_judge  20
active_window_minutes        30

---

Next: Session report →