An undocumented Claude Code command outlives the 5-hour cap

Claude Code ships with a built-in /low-priority slash command. When a session hits the 5-hour usage limit, the command keeps it working by serving requests from spare server capacity, where normally they would be blocked. The feature surfaced in a September 9 post on X by validatedev. Anthropic’s documentation doesn’t mention it and it has never appeared in the changelog, yet it is registered and fully implemented in the client binary at version 2.1.266.

Until now, the documented ways to keep working after a limit have all cost money. Usage credits, which used to be called “extra usage”, let work continue “billed at standard API pricing rates” up to a monthly spend cap the user sets, and /usage-credits turns them on for Pro and Max. The lower-priority mode costs no extra money. Its price is waiting.

Type documentation that ships with the client describes usage that “runs past a window’s cap” during lower-priority episodes. So the mode lets work continue after the session limit is reached without raising the limit. It runs on its own weekly allowance, tracked server-side and kept separate from both the 5-hour window and the standard weekly limit. The client shows how much of that allowance is left as a percentage. Once it’s gone, the client says “You’ve used this week’s lower-priority allowance”. The regular weekly limit still applies on top of all this, so the mode stretches a session but never the week.

Requests in this mode queue for unused capacity, and responses can stall. During those pauses the client shows a banner: “Working at lower priority, waiting for capacity”.

The mode switches itself off when any of these happens:

• the weekly limit is reached;
• the lower-priority allowance runs out;
• purchased usage credits take over;
• you switch accounts;
• the conversation is reset;
• the session waits too long for capacity without getting any.

In the last case the feature pauses for a cooldown period and then becomes available again.

Access is controlled by a server-side flag. That explains why some users get the option and others get a message saying lower-priority mode is not available. Anthropic has not announced the feature or published documentation for it. Later, on September 22, the company raised five-hour limits on Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise alongside the launch of Claude Opus 5.5, and added a rate-limit reset that subscribers can save and use when they choose, Justin McKelvey wrote. No new limit numbers were published.

To find the command, run until the session limit message appears, the one that reads “You’ve hit your session limit · resets 3:45pm”. Users on Reddit and X who found /low-priority say it only shows up after that message, and it won’t autocomplete in the command list, so you have to type the whole name.