OpenAI on October 12 lifts GPT-6.1 Sol default context window to 500,000 tokens, an 80 percent increase

OpenAI's Thibault Sottiaux announced on October 12 that GPT-6.1 Sol's default context window in Codex and Work environments is being raised from 272,000 to 500,000 tokens, an 80 percent expansion. The change targets heavy code users and reduces how often long-context tasks trigger forced compression, so the model no longer needs to summarize or drop details as often. OpenAI says 500,000 tokens is the sweet spot the team tested for balancing experience and performance; GPT-6.1 Sol supports up to 1,000,000 tokens, and users can override the default in settings. Sottiaux confirmed the default change applies to Codex and Work environments, with no mention of ChatGPT main chat windows receiving the same bump yet. The adjustment sits in the same sequence as the GPT-6.1 Sol October update on October 6 and the September 24 launch of GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, showing OpenAI's continued focus on context management for coding workflows.