{
  "title": "Context usage",
  "description": "Show how much of the current context budget is used or remains.",
  "slug": "context-usage-visibility",
  "locale": "en",
  "seoTitle": "Context usage compatibility — Can My Agent Use",
  "socialTitle": "Context usage",
  "socialDescription": "Compare token meters, context inspectors, and budget warnings across harnesses.",
  "llmSummary": "Context usage means the product reports current context consumption or remaining capacity; exact counters, estimates, source breakdowns, and warnings are qualifiers.",
  "audience": "Operators diagnosing truncation, compaction, and unexpectedly expensive context.",
  "contentKind": "feature",
  "status": "published",
  "tags": [
    "context",
    "tokens",
    "observability"
  ],
  "updated": "2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z",
  "published": "2026-08-28T00:00:00.000Z",
  "category": "models-context",
  "summary": "Inspect consumed or remaining context budget during a conversation or run.",
  "specLabel": "Common product term",
  "aliases": [
    "context meter",
    "token counter",
    "context inspector"
  ],
  "capabilityKind": "atomic",
  "parent": "models-and-context",
  "related": [
    "context-window",
    "prompt-cache-telemetry",
    "usage-metering"
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "highlight": false,
  "notes": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "text": "Evidence checked 2026-08-28: ChatGPT desktop documents /status as showing context usage; the Codex CLI interface documents remaining context in its session footer."
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "text": "Evidence checked 2026-08-28: Claude Code documents /usage and a configurable status line for current token usage, plus /context for identifying major context consumers."
    },
    {
      "id": 3,
      "text": "Evidence checked 2026-08-28: VS Code's context-window control reports token count, percentage usage, category breakdown, and session AI credits for agent chats."
    },
    {
      "id": 4,
      "text": "Evidence checked 2026-08-28: GitHub Copilot CLI documents `/context` as a token-usage visualization and breakdown of the current context window."
    }
  ],
  "issues": [],
  "resources": [
    {
      "title": "Methodology",
      "href": "/methodology",
      "kind": "note"
    },
    {
      "id": "openai-slash-commands",
      "title": "OpenAI — ChatGPT desktop slash commands",
      "href": "https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/reference/slash-commands",
      "kind": "docs",
      "publisher": "OpenAI",
      "evidenceType": "documented",
      "reviewedAt": "2026-08-28"
    },
    {
      "id": "openai-codex-cli",
      "title": "OpenAI — Codex CLI",
      "href": "https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/codex/cli",
      "kind": "docs",
      "publisher": "OpenAI",
      "evidenceType": "documented",
      "reviewedAt": "2026-08-28"
    },
    {
      "id": "anthropic-code-costs",
      "title": "Anthropic — Manage Claude Code costs",
      "href": "https://code.claude.com/docs/en/costs",
      "kind": "docs",
      "publisher": "Anthropic",
      "evidenceType": "documented",
      "reviewedAt": "2026-08-28"
    },
    {
      "id": "microsoft-vscode-session-context",
      "title": "Microsoft — Manage agent sessions in VS Code",
      "href": "https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/agents/run/sessions/manage-sessions",
      "kind": "docs",
      "publisher": "Microsoft",
      "evidenceType": "documented",
      "reviewedAt": "2026-08-28",
      "locator": "Manage session context"
    },
    {
      "id": "github-copilot-cli-context-management",
      "title": "GitHub — Managing context in Copilot CLI",
      "href": "https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-cloud@latest/copilot/concepts/agents/copilot-cli/context-management",
      "kind": "docs",
      "publisher": "GitHub",
      "evidenceType": "documented",
      "reviewedAt": "2026-08-28",
      "locator": "Checking your context usage"
    }
  ],
  "support": [
    {
      "harness": "chatgpt-desktop",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "yes",
          "noteIds": [
            1
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "dated-documentation",
            "revision": "current ChatGPT desktop documentation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "local-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "/status shows the chat ID, context usage, and rate limits"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "openai-slash-commands",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "harness": "codex-cli",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "yes",
          "noteIds": [
            1
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "dated-documentation",
            "revision": "current Codex CLI documentation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "local-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "the interactive interface displays remaining context as a percentage; the reviewed page does not document a component-by-component breakdown"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "openai-codex-cli",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "harness": "claude-cli",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "yes",
          "noteIds": [
            2
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "dated-documentation",
            "revision": "current Claude Code documentation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "local-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "/usage and status-line fields expose token usage; /context identifies major context consumers such as MCP definitions"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "anthropic-code-costs",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "harness": "vscode-copilot",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "yes",
          "noteIds": [
            3
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "dated-documentation",
            "revision": "current VS Code agent-session documentation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "local-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "the chat input control shows current usage, exact token count, a category breakdown, and the selected model's available context"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "microsoft-vscode-session-context",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "harness": "copilot-cli",
      "versions": [
        {
          "track": "current",
          "status": "yes",
          "noteIds": [
            4
          ],
          "target": {
            "kind": "dated-documentation",
            "revision": "current GitHub Copilot CLI context-management documentation",
            "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
          },
          "environmentProfile": "local-default",
          "qualifiers": [
            {
              "type": "runtime",
              "value": "/context displays total usage plus token and percentage breakdowns for context components"
            }
          ],
          "evidence": [
            {
              "resourceId": "github-copilot-cli-context-management",
              "type": "documented",
              "observedAt": "2026-08-28"
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "html": "/features/context-usage-visibility",
  "markdown": "/features/context-usage-visibility.md",
  "json": "/api/v1/features/context-usage-visibility.json",
  "body": "This row asks whether the exact harness shows the operator how much context is in use or remains. An exact token count, a percentage estimate, and a warning shown only at exhaustion are materially different and should be qualified.\n\nThe most useful implementations identify contributions from conversation turns, project instructions, tool schemas, retrieved files, images or video, long-term memory, and reserved output. Evidence should also say whether the meter updates before a request, after server-side processing, or only in logs."
}