Resume from summary fails with 'Extra usage required for 1M context' error

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Apr 17, 2026 by banifou Closed Apr 18, 2026

Description

When resuming an aged session via claude --resume, Claude Code shows a prompt with 3 options. Selecting Option 1 "Resume from summary (recommended)" reliably fails with this error:

Error during compaction: API Error: Extra usage is required for 1M context
· run /extra-usage to enable, or /model to switch to standard context

The same error also occurs when running /compact manually.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Have a session older than ~24h with substantial token usage (in my case: 23h 28m, 326k tokens)
  2. Resume the session (e.g. claude --resume)
  3. The prompt appears:
  • 1. Resume from summary (recommended)
  • 2. Resume full session as-is
  • 3. Don't ask me again
  1. Select option 1
  2. Error is thrown, compaction aborts

Expected behavior

Either:

  • The summary compaction should work without requiring 1M-context extra usage (since summarization reduces context, not expands it), or
  • The UI should gate option 1 behind /extra-usage activation and surface the requirement upfront instead of erroring after the user has already selected the "recommended" option.

Environment

  • Model: Sonnet 4.6 (1M context) — claude-sonnet-4-6[1m]
  • Platform: Linux 6.17.0-20-generic
  • Shell: bash
  • Reproducibility: happens every time an aged session is resumed

Impact

Option 1 is marked "recommended" but is effectively unusable for users who have not enabled /extra-usage. The only workarounds are option 2 (full resume, which consumes more usage limits — the opposite of what the prompt advises) or switching models via /model.

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