Anthropic shares 6 official tips to cut Claude Code token costs

addyosmani · x · 2026-09-03

Anthropic engineer Lydia Hallie published an official guide on maximizing Claude Code session efficiency:

Run /clear between tasks to avoid resending irrelevant context and cut token usage.
Set model and effort level upfront — switching mid-conversation busts the prompt cache and raises costs.
@-mention files instead of naming them, attaching files directly and saving a Read call or search.
Silence noisy command output or run it in a subagent, since output lingers in the session like a file.
Run /context once in a fresh session to see what's loaded (CLAUDE.md, MCP tools) and trim the excess.
/compact before stepping away — the prompt cache expires after an hour, and summarizing is cheapest while still cached.

With agentic coding tools billed by usage, every task now has a real cost, making context management the key to savings.

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