If you’ve been hitting Claude Code’s usage limits in 20 minutes instead of hours, you’re not imagining it and you’re not alone. The developer community has named it Cache-22: a prompt cache regression in recent Claude Code versions that’s causing Max-tier quotas to exhaust dramatically faster than expected.

Anthropic has acknowledged the bug. A fix is in progress. In the meantime, here’s how to work around it.

What’s Happening

Prompt caching is supposed to save tokens by reusing previously-processed context instead of re-processing it from scratch every request. When it works correctly, it dramatically extends how far your token quota goes — particularly in agentic workflows with large context windows.

The regression breaks this. Instead of serving cached prompts from memory, affected Claude Code versions are re-processing cached context on every request, consuming tokens at the rate of uncached requests while still behaving as if caching is active. The result: Max-tier users burning through their quota in 15-20 minutes on workloads that should run for hours.

The issue is distinct from the intentional throttling Anthropic implemented at peak hours in March (the “Rate Limit Mystery Solved” story from last month). This is a software bug causing unintended quota drain, not capacity management.

Workaround 1: Disable Prompt Caching Flags

The most direct fix: turn off prompt caching entirely and operate in uncached mode until the regression is patched.

In Claude Code, you can disable caching via the --no-cache flag (or equivalent in your configuration) when starting sessions:

claude --no-cache

Or in your .claude/settings.json configuration:

{
  "disablePromptCaching": true
}

Trade-off: You lose the token efficiency benefits of caching entirely. For shorter sessions or sessions with minimal context reuse, this may actually be more efficient than the bugged caching behavior. For sessions with heavy context reuse (large codebases, long conversations), you’ll burn through your quota faster than normal — but at a predictable rate rather than hitting a wall unexpectedly.

Workaround 2: Session Isolation

The quota drain compounds with session length. Longer sessions have more cached context, meaning the regression costs more tokens on each request.

Splitting work into shorter, more focused sessions reduces per-session exposure:

  • Complete discrete tasks in separate Claude Code sessions rather than one long session
  • Start fresh sessions when you switch context (e.g., from debugging one module to writing another)
  • Use /clear to reset context when you don’t need prior conversation history

This won’t eliminate the drain entirely if you’re on a version with the regression, but it reduces the amount of cached context being re-processed on each request.

Workaround 3: Token Monitoring

Add proactive monitoring so you can see quota consumption in real time and avoid hitting walls mid-task.

Claude Code’s /status command shows your current usage. For automated or agentic workflows, hook into the usage reporting to log token consumption per session:

# Quick check before starting a long session
claude /status

For agentic pipelines, implement a check at the start of each session to verify remaining quota before beginning work that would fail mid-way if quota runs out. Something like:

# Pseudocode — check quota before long agentic tasks
usage = get_claude_code_status()
if usage.remaining_tokens < MIN_REQUIRED_FOR_TASK:
    raise QuotaInsufficientError(f"Only {usage.remaining_tokens} tokens remaining")

Workaround 4: API vs CLI

If you’re using Claude Code CLI and your workflow supports it, the API may exhibit different caching behavior depending on the specific regression. Some users report the API path is less affected than the CLI path.

This is not confirmed universally — YMMV based on your specific usage pattern. But if you have automation that can run via the API, it’s worth testing.

What to Expect from the Fix

Anthropic acknowledged the bug and indicated a fix is in progress. Watch the Claude Code changelog and the Anthropic status page for the patch release. When the patch ships:

  1. Restart any active Claude Code sessions (cached context from bugged sessions may need to be cleared)
  2. Re-enable prompt caching if you disabled it as a workaround
  3. Monitor token consumption for a session or two to confirm behavior has returned to expected

The developer community has been active in the r/ClaudeAI and Anthropic Discord channels on this issue — those are also good places to watch for the patch announcement and community-confirmed fix.

Sources:

  1. DevOps.com — Claude Code quota limits usage problems
  2. The Register — Claude Code Cache-22 bug coverage
  3. BBC News — Claude Code quota drain reporting

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