Context and usage
Read context usage, understand compaction, and adjust how agent activity is displayed.
Dream shows information about the current conversation and, where available, the selected provider's usage limits. These answer different questions: how much context a chat is using, and how much of a provider's allowance has been used.
Check conversation context#
Use the context indicator beneath the message box to inspect the conversation's context usage. The context window is the amount of material the model can consider for a response, including conversation content and tool results.
Dream uses usage information supplied by the provider when available and may estimate usage from messages otherwise. Treat the indicator as guidance rather than an exact billing measurement. Changing models can change the available context window.
Understand compaction#
Some providers compact long conversations by summarizing older context. When the provider reports this activity, Dream displays Compacting context… or Context compacted in the conversation.
Compaction helps the agent continue a long task, but a summary may not retain every detail. Restate critical requirements and reference the current files if the conversation has moved far from the original request. Dream's displayed transcript and the context used by the provider are not necessarily identical.
Compaction behavior is controlled by the provider integration. It is not the same as archiving a chat, and it does not free up a provider's account usage allowance.
Check provider usage#
- Open a chat using the provider you want to inspect.
- Click the usage gauge beneath the message box.
- Review the available usage information and reset times.
The popover is labeled Plan usage for most providers and Usage stats for OpenCode. Availability and detail vary by provider. An unavailable reading does not by itself mean the chat cannot run; check any error on the actual response and the provider's own account information.
Make tool activity easier to read#
Open Settings → General and find Chat messages:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Show reasoning summaries | Displays reasoning summaries supplied by the model |
| Group tool calls | Groups tool activity into compact count chips |
| Expand tool calls | Shows tool-call details expanded by default |
These settings change presentation. They do not change the reasoning effort requested from the model; configure that in Models and defaults. The same group holds Change checkpoints, which controls whether Dream snapshots files before each reply; see Reviewing and restoring changes.
For a new task with a different goal, start a new chat. To retain a specific portion of a conversation while exploring an alternative, branch from a message.