DEV Community: Eren Çolak

Why Claude Code usage runs out so fast, and what is using it

Eren Çolak — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 12:51:50 +0000

Hitting your session or weekly limit sooner than your activity suggests is one of the most common complaints about Claude Code. The cause is usually not one big thing: a session that has been open for hours spends far more than the work you typed into it. Anthropic's cost documentation (checked 21 October 2026) lists the usual reasons. This guide goes through them, then shows how to find which one is yours.

Find out first: `/usage`

Before changing habits, look. On a Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise plan, /usage shows your plan limits and a breakdown of what counts against them:

Attribution: recent usage attributed to skills, subagents, plugins and individual MCP servers, each as a share of the total.
Behavior flags: long context or cache misses, flagged when one accounts for 10% or more of recent usage, each with a tip.
Loops: your heaviest /loop and other scheduled tasks, by total tokens (newer versions of Claude Code).

Press d or w to switch between the last 24 hours and 7 days. The figures are approximate and come from the session history on that machine, so usage from other devices or claude.ai is not in them. Newer versions also add a prompt cache line to the Session block, showing the share of input served from cache and how many misses there were.

Eight reasons usage climbs

These are the causes the documentation names for a long session using more of your limit than it seems to deserve.

1. A long conversation is re-read on every request

Claude Code sends your whole conversation with each request, and every round of tool use sends it again with the results. Prompt caching re-reads that history at the cheaper cached rate, but a one-line question at the end of a day-long session still draws on the entire conversation. Fix: run /clear when you switch to unrelated work (use /rename first and /resume later if you want to come back), and /compact with instructions about what to keep when you need continuity.

2. Cache misses after a break

Your first message after a pause longer than the cache lifetime misses the cache and reprocesses the whole context at full rate. Fix: if you know you are done with a session for a while, start fresh later rather than resuming a huge context after the break.

3. Scheduled tasks keep firing

A /loop or other session-scoped scheduled task fires on its interval even while the session is idle, sending the full context each time. Fix: check the Loops rows in /usage and stop tasks you forgot.

4. Messages from your other sessions

When another of your sessions sends a message to an idle one, it starts a new turn that sends the full context. The crossSessionInbound setting can be set to hold to keep inbound messages from being delivered.

5. Goal check-ins

While background work keeps an active goal waiting, Claude Code can start idle check-ins, each a new turn with your full context. Recent versions cap them at three per goal between your prompts; CLAUDE_CODE_GOAL_CHECKIN_MINUTES=0 turns them off.

6. Subagents and workflows

Every subagent, and every agent a workflow spawns, sends its own requests on top of the main conversation's. The attribution breakdown in /usage shows their share. Fix: give simple subagent tasks a smaller model (model: haiku in the subagent's configuration), and keep verbose work such as running tests in a subagent so only a summary returns.

7. Agent teams

Each active teammate keeps its own context window and keeps consuming tokens until it exits. The documentation says teams use roughly seven times the tokens of a standard session when teammates run in plan mode. Fix: keep teams small, give them focused tasks and shut teammates down when their work is done.

8. Compaction is a big request too

/compact has to read the conversation it summarizes, so compacting a large context is itself a large request. When you want a clean start rather than continuity, /clear costs nothing.

Smaller levers

Model and effort. Sonnet handles most coding tasks for less than Opus; switch with /model. Lower the effort level with /effort for simple tasks.
MCP servers. Run /context to see what fills your context and /mcp to disable servers you are not using.
A big CLAUDE.md. It loads at the start of every session. Anthropic suggests moving workflow-specific instructions into skills, which load only when used, and keeping CLAUDE.md under 200 lines.
Vague prompts. "Improve this codebase" triggers broad scanning; naming the file and the change does not.
Plan mode and early course-correction. Press Shift+Tab for plan mode before big changes, and Esc as soon as Claude heads the wrong way.

When you run several sessions

Every session draws on the same allowance, each with its own conversation, so four sessions spend it faster than one, and a long-lived one spends more than a fresh one. /usage works per machine, not per session. Paneherd shows the five-hour and weekly figures at the top of its sidebar and estimates each open pane's approximate share of the current window from its transcript, so the heavy session stands out. It also flags a pane that repeats the same failing call, which spends usage and gets nothing done. The shares are an estimate based on Paneherd's own weights, not Anthropic's accounting. More in how parallel sessions use your usage limits.

Keep the numbers in view

If you only want the limits in front of you, without a sidebar or panes, the free Claude Code & Codex Usage Meter puts the five-hour and weekly percentages, and Codex's, in the VS Code status bar and warns at 85% by default. It reads what Claude Code and Codex already report on your computer and sends nothing anywhere.

Install Paneherd free

Originally published at paneherd.com/guides/claude-code-usage-running-out-fast. I make Paneherd, a VS Code extension for running coding agents side by side.

How to control Claude Code and Codex from your phone

Eren Çolak — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 11:50:59 +0000

A coding agent that needs you while you are away from your desk just waits: for a permission, an answer, or its next prompt. There are now several ways to reach it from your phone. They differ in which agents they cover, what the phone can do, and what they ask of your setup. In every one of them the agent keeps running on your computer, so your computer has to stay on and awake.

1. Claude Code Remote Control

Anthropic's own option. Remote Control connects the Claude app on iOS or Android, or claude.ai/code, to a Claude Code session on your machine. There are three ways to start it:

claude remote-control runs a server in the current folder that you start sessions from on the phone. Press the spacebar to show a QR code.
claude --remote-control starts an ordinary interactive session that the phone can join too.
/remote-control (or /rc) connects a session that is already running, including in the Claude Code extension for VS Code.

From the phone you can send messages, attach photos and files, and answer permission prompts. With Push when actions required turned on in /config, the Claude app notifies you when a session needs a decision. It needs a Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise plan and a claude.ai login: it does not work with an API key, or with ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL pointing at a gateway. On Team and Enterprise an Owner has to turn it on first.

Best for: Claude Code on a Claude subscription. It is the most complete option for Claude, and it is built in.

2. Codex in the ChatGPT app

OpenAI added Codex control to the ChatGPT app for iPhone and Android in 2026. You pair the phone with Codex on your computer by scanning a QR code shown by the Codex app, then start tasks, follow their progress and approve commands from the phone. Newer Codex CLI versions also have an experimental codex remote-control command for machines without the desktop app. Which plans, regions and host systems are covered has changed during the rollout, so check OpenAI's current documentation before you count on it.

Best for: Codex on a ChatGPT plan.

3. Happy, an open-source app for both

Happy is an open-source mobile and web client for Claude Code and Codex. You start the agent through its wrapper (happy claude or happy codex) instead of the bare command, and switch to the phone when you leave. Its makers say the connection is end-to-end encrypted, and it notifies you when the agent needs permission. Sessions you start without the wrapper are not covered.

Best for: one app for Claude Code and Codex, if you are happy to launch them through it.

4. SSH and tmux

The tool-independent way. Run your agents inside tmux on your computer and attach to the same tmux session from an SSH app on the phone (Termius, Blink and others), usually over a VPN such as Tailscale so the computer is not exposed to the internet. You see the real terminal of any agent, whatever its maker. A phone keyboard is a hard place to drive a terminal UI, though, and nothing tells you when an agent starts waiting.

Best for: people who already work in tmux, and agents no app supports.

5. Paneherd's phone remote, for every pane in your editor

If you run several agents of different kinds side by side in VS Code or Cursor, Paneherd runs each one as a pane in an editor grid, and its phone remote shows all of them on one page. Run Pair a Phone…, scan the QR code and click Allow in the editor. Your phone opens paneherd.com/remote in the browser, with no app to install, and lists every editor window's panes with their status: working, waiting for permission, asking a question, or done. You can send a prompt to one pane or to several at once. With Pro you also answer Claude Code's permission prompts from the phone (Allow, Always, Deny).

It works for Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Gemini and Cursor panes alike (Gemini and Cursor panes take prompts but report no status), whatever plan or API key each one uses, because it talks to the editor rather than to Anthropic or OpenAI. Messages go through Paneherd's relay sealed with a key only your phone and your editor have, so the relay cannot read them. It only covers agents running as Paneherd panes.

Best for: a mixed herd of agents in your editor, seen and prompted from one page.

Side by side

	Agents	On the phone	Needs
Claude Code Remote Control	Claude Code	Claude app or browser	Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise; no API keys
Codex in ChatGPT	Codex	ChatGPT app	A ChatGPT plan; Codex app on the host
Happy	Claude Code, Codex	Happy app or browser	Starting agents through its wrapper
SSH and tmux	Any	An SSH app	tmux, SSH access, usually a VPN
Paneherd phone remote	Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Gemini, Cursor	Browser	VS Code or Cursor with Paneherd

Which one to pick

Mostly Claude Code on a subscription: use Remote Control, it is built in. Mostly Codex: use the ChatGPT app. Several kinds of agents at once in your editor: Paneherd's phone remote shows them together, and you can still turn on Remote Control in a Claude pane when you want the Claude app's full view of that one session. The options do not exclude each other.

Originally published at paneherd.com/guides/control-claude-code-codex-from-phone. I make Paneherd, a VS Code extension for running coding agents side by side.