diff --git a/hw/dixie/default.nix b/hw/dixie/default.nix
index 090aef4..38e1409 100644
--- a/hw/dixie/default.nix
+++ b/hw/dixie/default.nix
@@ -43,8 +43,11 @@ let
     ; serves the deriver, all dialectic levels and three agents' approval guardians at once:
     ; 8 slots over one 96k pool so tiny guardian/title calls still find a slot while Honcho
     ; catch-up (deriver + dreams + dialectic) holds 6 (at 2 x 16k, concurrent calls hit "failed to find
-    ; free space in the KV cache" and stalled)
-    ctx-size = 98304
+    ; free space in the KV cache" and stalled). 96k overflowed ~every 2-3 min under
+    ; load on 2026-09-23 (39 events 00:50-04:28; each fails ALL in-flight slots with
+    ; "Context size has been exceeded"). KV is ~20 KB/token here (9B process was 7.5 GB
+    ; at 96k incl. 5.5 GB weights), so 128k costs ~0.65 GB of the ~2.5 GB free.
+    ctx-size = 131072
     parallel = 8
     ; Runaway guard carried over from straylight: helper tasks need short answers.
     reasoning-budget = 2048