Rescue Tokens

Overview

Core principle: Token exhaustion masquerades as "rate limit" errors. Nine patterns waste tokens silently. Detect symptoms, act immediately with zero explanation overhead.

Emergency Red Flags

STOP and act if ONE OR MORE present (OR logic):

• Rate limit warnings ⚠️
• Context ≥40% full ⚠️
• $20-$100/month plan after 2pm ⚠️
• Conversation >90 minutes old ⚠️
• 5+ MCP plugins loaded ⚠️
• User says "don't lose context" ⚠️
• Opus 4.7 for simple tasks ⚠️

Each flag ALONE triggers emergency mode. These are emergencies, not optimizations.