The message shown when the context window is exhausted now distinguishes between the auto-compaction window and the raw model limit, and always names the specific action to take.
Details
Auto mode: Context exceeds the N-token limit by M tokens — run /compact or /clear to continue.
Non-auto mode: Context is M tokens past the N-token compaction window — run /compact to reduce usage.
Context limit message (search for "Context exceeds the" or "Context is" combined with "token compaction window").
Strings lifted out of the shipped bundle, so the claim above can be checked against them.
How sure we are
One source agreesOne thing we can check says the same as this entry.
Anthropic's release notes agree/context now shows an explicit warning when the conversation exceeds the context window, and a failed /compact displays as an error
