What Kairos does by itself

Priming

Starting each account's 5-hour window as soon as it can start, so it resets sooner — what Kairos sends, which accounts, when, what it costs, and preparing account folders while the old rotation runs.

A Claude account's 5-hour window starts at its first request after the last one reset. If rotation reaches an account three hours after its window could have started, the window starts then, and its next reset comes three hours later than it could have.

Priming starts each window as soon as it can: when an account's 5-hour window has reset, Kairos sends that account one tiny request, so the next window starts at once. The window rotation reaches it in still starts full; only its reset comes sooner. Starting it never leaves less room, and an account used up early has room again sooner.

Kairos never switches accounts to do it: the request goes out on the account's own sign-in.

What it costs

One request of a few hundred tokens in and a few out: well under a tenth of a cent at API prices, and half a second of the Mac's CPU.

Which accounts

Each account rotation may use (signed in, not paused, a seat you confirmed) whose 5-hour window is not running, whose week has room (a request at a weekly limit is refused), and that Kairos did not already start in this window. The active account goes first; one account a minute.

A request refused (signed out, at a limit) or failed waits half an hour, then twice as long after each failure in a row, up to six hours.

Only Claude Code's 5-hour window starts at a first request; a week resets on its own calendar, and other tools' windows are not known to work so.

Turning it off

Settings › Accounts › 5-hour windows › Start each window early. It is on until you turn it off; the footer says when Kairos last did it. See Settings › Accounts.

Before you move your accounts

If your accounts are still kept by the older rotation that moved one login between them, claude-rotation prepare-folders gives every account its own Claude Code folder while that rotation keeps running. Sign in to each with claude-rotation sign-in work --folder, and Kairos starts each window early from then on. See Rotation › Moving accounts.