[BUG] Severe session limit reduction for Pro users (Hitting 100% in ~3 simple prompts)

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?

Hi Claude Code team! First of all, I want to say that I absolutely love this product. It has become an essential tool in my daily development workflow.

However, I am writing to express a growing concern that many users, including myself, are currently experiencing regarding session usage limits.

The Issue:
Recently, the usage limit per session seems to have been drastically reduced. As a Pro subscriber who has been using the tool for a while, I've never seen my limits drain this fast. Right now, I am hitting 100% usage after just about 3 simple prompts. This effectively makes the new session limit unusable for standard development tasks.

Context & Impact:

This is happening on the Pro tier.

It seems to be affecting a significant number of users, though perhaps not everyone.

Because there hasn't been any official communication or acknowledgment yet, it feels a bit like user reports might be misunderstood as exaggerations without proper investigation.

Request:
I genuinely hope this is an unexpected bug rather than an intended behavior. Could the engineering team please give this the priority it deserves and look into it? If this is an intended change to the session limits, it would be highly appreciated if you could release an official statement explaining the new thresholds so we can adjust our expectations and usage.

Thanks for your hard work and for building such a great tool!

What Should Happen?

As a Pro subscriber, a standard session should easily accommodate a prolonged development workflow. Sending ~3 simple, low-context prompts should only consume a very small fraction of the session limit. The usage percentage should accurately reflect the actual token consumption or context size, allowing for continuous, multi-turn interactions without hitting the 100% cap almost immediately.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

Start a fresh, new session in Claude Code using a Pro account.

Submit a very simple, low-context prompt (e.g., "Write a hello world in Python" or a basic refactoring question).

Monitor the session usage indicator.

Submit 1 or 2 more simple follow-up prompts.

Observe that the session usage rapidly spikes to 100%, effectively blocking further interaction in a fraction of the usual time.

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.81 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

iTerm2

Additional Information

_No response_