6 tips to slash token costs in Claude Code workflows (ultracode)
majidmanzarpour · x · 2026-10-01
Engineer majidmanzarpour shares 6 practical tips for keeping token costs down when using workflows (ultracode) in Claude Code:
- Set effort first: /effort high (or medium) for routine work; request xhigh/max only for named hard parts.
- Describe the workflow in plain words with limits: e.g. "at most 6 agents, effort high, one fix round plus one review, no multi-vote verification."
- Set a token budget: a directive like "+2M tokens" becomes a hard ceiling the workflow sizes itself to.
- Cap the loops: "max 2 rounds" or "stop after first approval"; open-ended loops like "until no new bugs" are the biggest multipliers.
- Name what can be cheaper: mechanical steps (metrics, renders, docs) at low/medium; judgment steps (reviews, hard debugging) at high/xhigh.
- Ask for a checkpoint: "pause after phase 1" stops the fan-out before you've reviewed.
Bottom line: reserve the ultracode keyword for tasks where exhaustiveness is worth it; a plain "use a workflow" with explicit limits gets most of the benefit at a fraction of the cost.
Related event: Six Tips to Cut Token Costs in Claude Code Workflows(2 posts)→
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