14 October 2026

دليل · Guide6 min read

وقف تكلفة جلسات Claude Code الخاملة مع الـ idle compactionStop paying for idle Claude Code sessions with idle compaction

You will understand how Claude Code compacts a long idle session before its cache expires, set it up the way you want, and prepare a session before you walk away.

Who this guide is for

Founders, developers and creators who leave Claude Code sessions open for hours and come back to them.

Key terms

Context
Everything Claude Code sends with each message: your instructions, the conversation and tool results. The bigger it is, the more each message costs.
Prompt cache
Temporary storage on the server that keeps the processed part of your conversation so it is not processed again. It expires after a period of inactivity.
TTL
How long the cache lives. On a Claude subscription within your plan usage it is one hour for the main conversation. With an API key or usage credits it is five minutes, unless you set it yourself.
Compaction
Replacing a long conversation history with a short summary so the context gets smaller.
Idle compaction
A feature that compacts an idle conversation automatically before its cache expires. Listed in the 2.1.299 release notes.

The steps

  1. Step 1

    Check your Claude Code version

    The 2.1.299 release notes describe the feature and its settings, and the minimum for the feature itself is version 2.1.290. Open a terminal and run the command. If your version is older, update it the same way you installed it.

    A terminal window with the command claude --version
    Illustration
    PromptVersion check
    claude --version

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