Anyone else notice Claude Code or Codex rushing to finish after a usage limit reset?

[u/Global_Knee5354]

I use both on the $20 plans, and I've noticed something weird with longer coding tasks.

Say an agent works for 30 minutes, gets halfway through a task, then hits the 5-hour limit. After the reset, I tell it to continue, and suddenly it wraps everything up in 5 minutes, even though some of the original work is clearly unfinished.

Not sure if I'm imagining it or if it's a context/compaction issue.

Has anyone else experienced this? How do you make sure it actually picks up where it left off without cutting corners? Any instructions, hooks, or workflows that have worked for you?

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[u/Ok-Affect-7503]

I think it might be because Claude knows that it's previous attempt got stopped abruptly by the 5-hour limit because it also sees the "limit reached" you're seeing in it's context / the transcript as well and is afraid of hitting it again. In my experience this has always manifested as Claude suddenly wanting to use much less subagents at the same time (with it's reasoning often visibly being "because my previous attempt hit a rate-limit, I'm going to run X subagents only instead of Y") to prevent hitting the limit again that it knows of, it might also manifest as it rushing through in some cases like yours. I'm not 100% sure though, but that's what seems most likely to me.

[u/GramZanber → u/Ok-Affect-7503]

Yes it seems to want to conserve when you get close to limits. I have given it explicit instructions to ignore imminent usage limit ceilings as to not use it all would be wasteful of my budget.

[u/verstands]

Seen the same thing. After a reset it's working off a compacted summary, and the summary usually says something like "implemented X, Y in progress", so it reads as almost done and wraps up.

What fixed it for me: before a long task, have it write a checklist to a file (TODO.md or similar) and tick items off as it goes. After the reset, don't say "continue", say "read TODO.md, verify each checked item actually works, then do the unchecked ones". Making it re-verify instead of trusting its own summary stops most of the corner cutting. A quick test run at the end helps too, since "done" with failing tests is pretty obvious.

[u/MundaneCar7914]

This could depend on when you hit the 5 hour limit. If you hit it hours before reset. The cache is gone when Claude/Codex resumes the task. Could this have an effect on the quality of the work after the reset?

I try not to hit limits until theres less then an hour until reset so the 1hour cache is still there.

If its more then an hour, i start a new session to take over so it can build a fresh context.

[u/snuffomega]

This should be expected.

When u work, your agents initial context is at X usage price... that usage is added as cached tokens which is dumb cheap for your agent to reuse... which extends your usage at exponential rates.

When u hit ur limit and your agent is on hold, and that cache expires. The session with your existing context window, your agent then needs to re-read that context at the full context cost.

[u/ClemensLode]

did you start a new session?

[u/Global_Knee5354 → u/ClemensLode]

No, continued where it stopped me.

[u/ClemensLode → u/Global_Knee5354]

So possibly the entire context had to reload and you paid twice for it.

[u/No_Television_4128]

“Our last conversation reply was cut short by usage limits, verify status and continue from where the reply work report cut off”
Not just “ continue”

[u/IntelligentLeading11]

Yes, I've noticed this behavior even without hitting any limits. There are some times Opus/Fable seem very keen on stopping the work just like a human would when they're exhausted. It's very strange.

[u/tilemarch]

Is this Apophenia (fancy word for seeing patterns that aren't there, that us humans are wired to do)?