Maximizing the value of your Claude Code sessions

TL;DR - Run /clearbetween tasks. This prevents prior irrelevant context from being sent back to the model, which can reduce token usage. - Set your model and effort level before you start. Changing either one mid-conversation can bust your prompt cache, which can increase token cost. - @-mention files instead of naming them. The file gets attached to your message directly, which saves a Read call, or a search if Claude has to go find it. - Add quiet flags to noisy commands, or run them in a subagent. Command output is added to the conversation just like a file, and stays there for the rest of the session. - Run /context once in a fresh session. It shows what's loaded (CLAUDE.md, MCP tool definitions), so you can cut out anything unnecessary. - /compact before you take a break from your keyboard. The prompt cache expires after an hour, and summarizing a conversation is much cheaper while it's still cached.