[BUG] "Continue where you left off" consumes disproportionate usage from new billing cycle

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Problem
When a long conversation hits the usage limit and is continued after a cycle reset, the conversation summary from the previous session is loaded as input context. This summary counts against the new cycle's usage, effectively double-billing for work already completed and paid for in the previous cycle.

In my case, a productive session involving multiple feature implementations and bug fixes hit the usage limit mid-task. The last thing Claude was doing before the limit hit was:

"Excellent analysis. Let me now read the critical sections to verify the exact line numbers and code before writing the plan:"
Read 3 files
You've hit your limit - resets 6am

After the reset, I opened https://claude.ai/settings/usage to monitor my new cycle's usage (showing 0%), then started a new conversation and asked to "continue where you left off." My usage jumped from 0% to 46% instantly, before any meaningful work began, just from loading the prior session's summary.

Impact
Punishes users who do complex and productive work
Makes "continue where you left off" essentially unusable after long sessions
Feels like paying twice for the same work

What Should Happen?

The more productive your previous session was, the larger the summary, and the more of your next cycle gets consumed just to "remember" what was already done. This creates a perverse incentive to avoid complex multi-step work, which is exactly what Claude Code is designed for.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Have a long, complex session that uses most/all of your context window (multiple features, bug fixes, plan exploration, etc.)
Hit the usage limit mid-task, wait for the next cycle reset
Open https://claude.ai/settings/usage to confirm usage is at 0%
Start a new conversation and ask to continue where you left off
Observe that a large percentage of the new cycle's usage is consumed immediately upon the first response
Expected Behavior
Work completed and paid for in a previous billing cycle should not significantly consume usage in the next cycle. The session summary is a byproduct of prior work. Re-processing it should either:

Not count toward the new cycle's usage, or
Be heavily discounted, or
Be optimized to be significantly more compact

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

1.1.2998 (1f1d4d)

Platform

Other

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

_No response_