Token Usage Tips for Claude Code

A detailed Reddit post shares hard-won lessons about managing token consumption in Claude Code. The author notes that most token burn comes from setup context, not Claude's answers. Here are the key practices they use and recommend:

Immediate Wins

• Start new chats for unrelated tasks. Every message in a long conversation resends the full history. A 40-message thread burns tokens on context you stopped caring about 20 messages ago.
• Group small questions into one message. Sending three quick follow-ups individually means three full context loads. Combine them to cut overhead.
• Keep CLAUDE.md short and use it as an index. Dumping everything causes Claude to reread it every turn. Instead, point to separate files so only relevant context loads.

Ongoing Habits

• Be precise with file references. Instead of saying 'here's the whole codebase, figure it out,' which can cost 30–50k tokens in exploration, point Claude to the specific function or module that matters.
• Summarize and restart after 15–20 messages. Ask Claude for a quick summary, paste it into a fresh thread. This drops dead context without losing progress.
• Use lighter models for lighter work. Drafting, reformatting, explaining — route these to smaller models. Reserve the heavy model for reasoning-heavy tasks.

The post invites the community to share their own tricks for keeping token usage under control.