I’ve spent the last few months coding and testing using AI coding tools — Cursor, Copilot, and most recently, Claude Code, so far, my favorite partner in crime.

Most developers waste 60–80% of Claude’s brainpower on junk it doesn’t need to see. I know — because I did it too.

My early Claude sessions looked like this:

$ claude "Help me understand the auth flow"
# Claude:
# - Reads 47 random files I didn’t ask for
# - Loads 89K tokens
# - Gives me a surface-level summary
# - Forgets half of it 20 messages later

$ “Wait, what did you say about token refresh?”

# Claude: 
# “Uh… I don’t recall mentioning that.” 😅

That’s when I learned the golden rule:

Claude’s context window isn’t a hard drive — it’s like a RAM.

Fast, powerful, and easy to fill up if you keep 47 tabs open and a Docker container running “just in case.”

After a few months (and a few therapy sessions), I cut my context waste by 80%.

First, let’s set the context (pun intended)

Let’s understand the problem. Claude Code has 200K tokens (~150,000 words). Sounds huge, right? It is — until you realize a normal codebase already eats most of it:

• Backend: 45K
• Frontend: 78K
• Tests: 23K
• Docs: 12K

→ Total: 158K (and you haven’t even asked anything yet)

And like RAM, it doesn’t just fill — it decays. Information loaded at token 10K is:

• Vivid at 50K tokens
• Fuzzy at around 120K
• Like talking to someone who just woke up from a nap at 180K

The 7 strategies that actually worked for me

1. Context Scoping — Load Only What You Need

Don’t feed Claude the entire repo when you only need auth/service.py. That’s like giving your barista your full grocery list when you just want coffee.

# ❌ Bad
claude "Review the authentication flow"
# Loads entire backend + frontend + tests (78K tokens of noise)

# ✅ Good
backend-dev "Review backend/src/app/auth/"

We (me and Claude) now use domain-scoped agents — backend, frontend, devops — each locked to its zone. Claude literally can’t wander into the wrong directory.

Result: Physically impossible to load irrelevant code. Context efficiency: heck yeah!

2. Lazy Loading — Just-in-Time Context

Don’t pre-load everything. Load on demand.

# ❌ Eager mode
claude "Read all backend files before we start" # 80K tokens gone


# ✅ Lazy mode
claude "Read auth/service.py" # 3K tokens

I even wired “pre-hooks” — scripts that detect keywords like auth or login and automatically pull in only what’s needed.

Trust me, your context window will thank you.

3. Knowledge Bases — Memory That Lives Outside the Chat

Claude’s memory resets, your docs don’t. Keep long-term info in docs/ instead of retyping it:

docs/product/overview.md
docs/backend/api.md
docs/architecture/overview.md

Next time you ask a product question, Claude can read it fresh. Always accurate, version-controlled, and searchable. Saves 60–80% of tokens — and your sanity.

4. Context Compression — Say More with Less

When your chat history grows huge, summarize it every 50K tokens. Replace the long scroll with a quick recap:

Task: Implement recurring events

Done: API + migrations

Next: Write tests

Also — stop pasting entire test outputs or diffs — summarize or link artifacts, your context stays sharp.

5. Agent to Agent Context Handoffs — Pass Only What Matters

Switching from backend-dev to tester? Don’t throw the entire chat history over the wall. Use a small YAML like this:

handoff:
  task: "Add tests for recurring events"
  files_changed:
    - backend/src/app/catalog/service.py
  edge_cases:
    - DST transitions
    - Performance (52 instances)

That’s 1K tokens instead of 150K — and everyone stays sane.

6. Context Persistence — Save Artifacts

Ever notice how your brain doesn’t lose all memories when you go to sleep? (Well, most nights.) Do the same with your sessions and ask every agent to save what it did in a folder like:

agent_output/backend-dev/20251004/
├── implementation.md
├── decisions.md
├── test_requirements.md

The next session just reads these instead of reloading 80K tokens of chat. Basically, Claude — but with version control.

7. Context Boundaries — Stay in Your Lane

Don’t mix frontend, backend, and ops in one mega-session. That’s how memory leaks happen (in both computers and people).

Keep sessions small and focused:

• backend-dev: Fix auth bug
• frontend-dev: Update login UI
• devops-expert: Deploy the fix

Claude’s happier, faster, and won’t drift off into imaginary code.

Real Results

So, did all this theory actually help? A resounding yes!

The meta-lesson: Treat Claude’s context like RAM on a laptop from 2015 running Chrome. It’s precious, it’s limited, and if you don’t manage it, things will get slow and weird.

The developers who figure this out early will have an unfair advantage. Be one of them.

So:

1. Scope it
2. Load it lazily
3. Store knowledge in files
4. Summarize often
5. Pass cleanly
6. Save artifacts
7. Keep boundaries

Master this, and your future self — and Claude — will thank you.

#AI #Anthropic #ClaudeCode #DeveloperExperience #VibeCoding #NoviceVibeCoder #AICoding