[FEATURE] Expose exact remaining-context token count to Dispatch/Cowork sessions
Preflight Checklist
- [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
- [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)
Problem Statement
Dispatch/Cowork sessions (the desktop-app agent) can only estimate remaining context — there is no exact gauge. When driving Cowork/Dispatch from mobile or in the field, there is no native status line, so I cannot tell when the context window is near full. This leads to unexpected auto-compaction and degraded output quality mid-task, with no warning.
Claude Code CLI already solves this for its own sessions via totalTokensReminder: "countdown", which injects <total_tokens>N tokens left</total_tokens> into the model context. Dispatch/Cowork has no equivalent.
Proposed Solution
Provide a server-side / account-level equivalent of totalTokensReminder for Dispatch/Cowork sessions: inject <total_tokens>N tokens left</total_tokens> into their context so the agent can surface exact remaining context, and/or show remaining context directly in the Cowork/Dispatch UI.
Ideal UX: the agent renders an accurate context gauge (e.g. 31% · 314K / 1M) in each reply, so the user knows exactly when to start a fresh session before quality degrades.
Alternative Solutions
- Currently the agent only estimates usage (approximate token line) — imprecise and easy to overshoot.
- On the Claude Code CLI side,
totalTokensReminder: "countdown"in ~/.claude/settings.json works (verified, v2.1.202) and injects live<total_tokens>. But this local setting is not read by the server-side Cowork/Dispatch harness, so it cannot be enabled for those sessions from the user side.
Priority
Low - Nice to have
Feature Category
Other
Use Case Example
- I'm away from my desk, driving a Cowork/Dispatch session from my phone.
- I work through several tasks; context gradually fills.
- With no accurate remaining-context indicator on mobile, I don't notice the window is nearly full.
- Auto-compaction kicks in mid-task, the agent loses fidelity, and output quality drops with no warning.
With an exact gauge, I'd see e.g. "85% used" and start a fresh session before quality degrades.
Additional Context
- Verified: Claude Code CLI 2.1.202 with
totalTokensReminder: "countdown"injects live<total_tokens>after each action. - Verified: a Dispatch/Cowork session has no
<total_tokens>in its context at all (full context reviewed) — the local ~/.claude/settings.json is not read server-side. - Cowork/Dispatch appears to share the Claude Code runtime but not its local config.
- Companion to the visible-output detector discussion in #70422.