Equation 15 · Part 1 · Claude Code, From First Principles: The Agentic Loop, Permissions, and What Actually Executes

Symbol C_max

C_{\mathrm{max}}

C_{\mathrm{max}}

What this part means

$C_m$ ax is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.

Its job in the formula

$C_m$ ax is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.

Full expressionSymbol C_maxArticle meaning

The passage around this formula

The growth is monotonic and the response is a threshold rule, which is worth writing down because it is the one piece of real mechanism in this section rather than product description. Treat | $c_t$ | as the token size of the context at step t and $C_{\mathrm{max}}$ as the model’s context limit. Compaction is triggered once accumulated context crosses a configurable fraction $\tau$ of that limit:

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Learn the underlying idea

A subscript is a label attached below a symbol. It often selects a time step, component, category, or member of a sequence.

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Sources cited in the article section

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