Compaction warning should be persistent, not transient

Problem

The context-approaching-compaction warning was changed in 2.1.98 from a persistent row to a transient footer notification. For users running long sessions with important context, this makes it easy to miss the warning entirely — especially during tool-heavy workflows where the UI is actively updating.

In practice, auto-compaction fires with what feels like zero warning because the transient notification appears briefly and disappears before the user can act on it.

Requested behavior

• Make the compaction warning persistent (visible in the footer/header until addressed), or at minimum provide a setting to control this behavior
• Show the warning early enough that users have time to run /compact manually with custom instructions before auto-compaction fires
• Consider a configurable threshold for when the warning appears (e.g., 70% of context window)

Why this matters

/compact accepts custom summarization instructions, which is excellent. But auto-compaction uses default instructions. Users who want to control what gets preserved in the summary need enough warning time to run /compact manually. A transient notification that appears moments before auto-compaction fires defeats this purpose.

Environment

• Claude Code 2.1.101
• Claude Max plan (1M context)
• Heavy tool usage (MCP servers, hooks, long sessions)