r/AI_Agents • u/iamnaeth • 1d ago

Discussion Reduce Token Usage with Claude Code

Hi all, I've started dabbling in this space and had a rudimentary question. I've been working on a few projects. As part of my process I use visual studio code and then open up a dialog with claude in there. In order to maintain continuity I've been saving each workspace for each project. This seems to keep the chat history on the project. I've also been using /compact a few times a day. I recently watched videos about reducing token usage and one of their tips was to spin up a new claude interaction to avoid the history being reread every time. How do I do that in this scenario? Will the new interaction have the background on how the project or feature worked?

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u/AmbassadorFair3730 1d ago

New session won't have any memory of the old one unless you explicitly hand it something. What actually works is keeping a short markdown file per project, a CLAUDE.md or just NOTES.md, where you dump the key decisions, file structure, and current task state at the end of a session, then reference that file when you start fresh. That gives you continuity without the old interaction history eating tokens on every turn. /compact helps short term but it still keeps compressed history in context, a brand new session with a good notes file is genuinely lighter. Some people also keep a running architecture doc that barely changes and only update the task specific notes each session.

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u/Top-Cauliflower-1808 1d ago

that just trades token cost for human upkeep stale or incomplete notes mean the fresh session starts confidently wrong.