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Public story · 2026-08-16 · high
The August 13 release adds manual compaction and a usage drawer, so tasks no longer auto-compact without warning mid-run.
Why now: The fix shipped August 13, closing a blind spot specific to OpenHands' own auto-compaction, not a broader industry pattern.
OpenHands 1.13.0 turned the context window into something you watch and control, per the August 13 release notes. That matters for anyone running long agent sessions, where silent compaction can drop context you need and derail a task with no visible cause.
The release adds a context window usage meter, a usage drawer, and manual compaction. Now you decide when to trim history instead of letting the system decide for you.
It also ships client-side conversation archiving and inline markdown previews for artifacts.
A new readiness gate flags when a GitHub issue is ready for an agent to pick up.
The fix list is a tell on its own. Automations that used to drop integrations that can't install through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) now surface them instead of failing silently. The basic LLM provider picker no longer cuts off at 100 entries.
Silent auto-compaction always felt like a feature until it deleted the one thing you needed mid-task. Making it visible and manual admits the heuristic was never good enough to run unsupervised. If you're building on OpenHands, check the usage drawer before a long run, not after it fails.
Each link below shares sources, entities, or timing with this story.
OpenHands competes with Claude Code / Shared entities / Same source domain / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (OpenHands competes with Claude Code); both cover GitHub, LLM, MCP; reported by the same outlet (github.com).
OpenHands competes with Claude Code / Shared entities / Same source domain / Earlier coverage
Linked by a graph relationship (OpenHands competes with Claude Code); both cover GitHub, LLM, MCP; reported by the same outlet (github.com).
Linked by a graph relationship (OpenHands competes with Claude Code); both cover Client, GitHub, MCP; reported by the same outlet (github.com).
Linked by a graph relationship (OpenHands competes with Claude Code); both cover GitHub, LLM, MCP; reported by the same outlet (github.com).
OpenHands competes with Claude Code / Shared entities / Same source domain / Shared topic / Earlier coverage
Linked by a graph relationship (OpenHands competes with Claude Code); both cover GitHub, LLM; reported by the same outlet (github.com).
OpenHands competes with Claude Code / Shared entities / Same source domain / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (OpenHands competes with Claude Code); both cover GitHub, MCP; reported by the same outlet (github.com).
Simon Willison released LLM / Shared entities / Same source domain / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (Simon Willison released LLM); both cover LLM, MCP; reported by the same outlet (github.com).
OpenHands uses Claude / Shared entities / Same source domain / Earlier coverage / Tension
Linked by a graph relationship (OpenHands uses Claude); both cover GitHub, MCP; reported by the same outlet (github.com).