Dev claims 78% Claude Code usage savings via smart compaction, open-sourcing ystack
YashasGunderia · x · 2026-11-09
Developer YashasGunderia shares two months of Claude Code usage optimization: running smart compaction before hot cache expiry cut hourly usage by over 78%, and his bundled ystack stack (mods, skills, rules) adds 39% weekly savings.
Data from 248,000 real API calls (Sept–Nov): usage per active hour fell from 38.4M to 8.3M input-token equivalents, and median context per call halved (375k → 189k). He notes 78% is the upper end; 39% per call is the firm floor.
Key insight: capable models like Opus 5.5 don't need long descriptive skills. ystack is currently private but will be open-sourced, along with ystack-stats to measure the difference.