The conversation history is too large to compact

[yoeluk]

Checks

• I have searched github.com/aws/amazon-q-developer-cli/issues and there are no duplicates of my issue
• I have run q doctor in the affected terminal session
• I have run q restart and replicated the issue again

Operating system

macOS 14.6.1 (23G93)

Expected behaviour

compact should handle large history, that is why we need /compact

Actual behaviour

q crashes with The conversation history is too large to compact

The context window has overflowed, summarizing the history...


Reducing context...


Your conversation is too large to continue.
• Run /usage to analyze your context usage
• Run /clear to reset your conversation state


Unable to compact the conversation history: 
   0: The conversation history is too large to compact

Location:
   crates/chat-cli/src/cli/chat/mod.rs:728

Backtrace omitted. Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=1 environment variable to display it.
Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=full to include source snippets.
> /compact


Reducing context...


>

Steps to reproduce

No response

Environment

<This will be visible to anyone. Do not include personal or sensitive information>

[q-details]
version = "1.12.3"
hash = "65aa9285fc7ec3716215386a89d3a626500a25a7"
date = "2025-07-03T01:14:12.212107Z (6d ago)"

[system-info]
os = "macOS 14.6.1 (23G93)"
chip = "Apple M2"
total-cores = 8
memory = "24.00 GB"

[environment]
cwd = "/Users/USER/projects/nextutor"
cli-path = "/Users/USER/projects/nextutor"
install-method = "unknown"

[env-vars]
PATH = "/opt/homebrew/opt/postgresql@16/bin:/opt/homebrew/opt/libpq/bin:/Users/USER/.sdkman/candidates/java/current/bin:/Users/USER/.sdkman/candidates/gradle/current/bin:/Users/USER/.nvm/versions/node/v9.11.2/bin:/opt/homebrew/bin:/opt/homebrew/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/System/Cryptexes/App/usr/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/local/bin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/bin:/var/run/com.apple.security.cryptexd/codex.system/bootstrap/usr/appleinternal/bin:/Applications/VMware Fusion Tech Preview.app/Contents/Public:/opt/podman/bin:/Users/USER/.local/bin:/Users/USER/Library/Application Support/JetBrains/Toolbox/scripts"
QTERM_SESSION_ID = "6a7325297aab4e38a0fac50d524f3dd8"
Q_SET_PARENT_CHECK = "1"
Q_TERM = "1.12.1"
SHELL = "/bin/zsh"
TERM = "xterm-256color"
__CFBundleIdentifier = "com.apple.Terminal"

[HCYT]

I ran into the same issue — and I only used 120k tokens.

Both automatic and manual attempts to run compact fail.

[gvasquez95]

➕ I've had this issue too, several times

[ajitnk-lab]

+1

[yoeluk]

Not sure, but it seems to be working a lot better for the last 2 days, maybe this was fixed in the cloud. It would be nice to hear from the developers

[luis-eero]

+1