Auto-compaction blocks session for several minutes mid-task

Summary

Auto-compaction blocked my session for roughly 7 minutes today while conversation history was being summarized. During this window the session was unresponsive — no output, no tool calls executing.

Environment

• Claude Code
• Platform: macOS (Darwin 25.2.0)
• Date observed: 2026-04-24

Impact

I was querying a live production database during an active trading session. A multi-minute freeze mid-task is disruptive — /clear is faster but destroys context I still needed.

Requests

1. Run compaction earlier / in smaller chunks so it doesn't stall the session all at once.
2. Show a progress indicator or ETA during compaction.
3. Allow new commands to run against trimmed context while compaction continues in the background.