Coding agents now compact the conversation and keep going instead of stopping when context runs out

Claude Code 2.1.311 compacts sessions that pass 200K tokens and continues instead of stopping with a credits message. OpenCode is testing background compaction with a quieter interface, and Zed 1.25.2 turns on context compaction for external agents connected through ACP. Long sessions will increasingly run on summaries of earlier work, so whatever a summary leaves out is effectively gone for the agent unless it is written down somewhere outside the conversation.

From the Field Notes:

• Claude Code 2.1.311 speeds Pro/Max startup and keeps compacting past 200K tokens (2026-10-27)
• OpenCode's experimental background compaction setting lands in dev builds, with a quieter compaction UI merged Oct 25 (2026-10-25)
• Zed 1.25.2 stable cuts binary size by about 33% on macOS, 28% on Windows and 7% on Linux (2026-10-24)

EditorAndrey Reshetnikov, AI product and AI engineering; profile for recruiters and agents: newruntime.com/owner-profile.json