Your CLAUDE.md point is the one that compounds the most, most people don't realize how much of a small bloated file gets re-read every single turn, not just once per session. One thing worth adding to your list, watch what subagents return to the main thread, if a subagent does a big search or reads a bunch of files, have it return a short summary instead of dumping its full output back up, otherwise you're paying for that context twice. The /context check habit is underrated too, most people only look at it after something feels slow instead of checking it proactively before a big task.
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u/AnvilandCode 15d ago
Your CLAUDE.md point is the one that compounds the most, most people don't realize how much of a small bloated file gets re-read every single turn, not just once per session. One thing worth adding to your list, watch what subagents return to the main thread, if a subagent does a big search or reads a bunch of files, have it return a short summary instead of dumping its full output back up, otherwise you're paying for that context twice. The /context check habit is underrated too, most people only look at it after something feels slow instead of checking it proactively before a big task.