[captainregex]

I’m super envious. I can’t seem to do anything without a half a million tokens. I had to create a slash command that I run at the start of every session so the darn thing actually reads its own memory- whatever default is just doesn’t seem to do it. It’ll do things like start to spin up scripts it’s already written and stored in the code base unless I start every conversation with instructions to go read persistence and memory files. I also seem to have to actively remind it to go update those things at various parts of the conversation even though it has instructions to self update. All these things add up to a ton of work every session.

I think i’m doing it wrong

[hombre_fatal]

Something sounds very wrong with your setup or how you use it.

Is your CLAUDE.md barren?

Try moving memory files into the project:

    (In your project's .claude/settings.local.json)

    { ...
      "plansDirectory": "./plans/wip",
      "autoMemoryDirectory": "/Users/foo/project/.claude/memory"
    }

(Memory path has to be absolute)

I did this because memory (and plans) should show up in git status so that they are more visible, but then I noticed the agent started reading/setting them more.

[3371]

This does kind of smell like the wrong way to use it. Not trying to self-promote here, but the experiences you shared really made me think I headed the right direction with my prompting framework ("projex" - I once made a post about it).

I straight up skip all the memory thing provided by harnesses or plugins. Most of my thread is just plan, execute, close - Each naturally produce a file - either a plan to execute, a execution log, a post-work walkthrough, and is also useful as memory and future reference.

[pwinnski]

Something seems wrong. A half-million tokens is almost five times larger than I allow even long-running conversations to get too. I've manually disabled the 1M context, so my limit is 200K, and I don't like it to get above 50%.

Is it... not aware of its current directory? Is its current directory not the root of your repo? Have you maybe disabled all tool use? I don't even know how I could get it to do what you're describing.

Maybe spend more time in /plan mode, so it uses tools and the Explore sub-agent to see what the current state of things is?

[arcanemachiner]

Two quick thoughts:

- Use the Plan mode, create a thorough plan, then hand it off to the next agent for execution.

- Start encapsulating these common actions into Skills (they can live globally, or in the project, per skill, as needed). Skills are basically like scripts for LLMs - package repeatable behavior into single commands.

[JamesSwift]

If i had to guess i think you have probably overstuffed the context in hopes of moulding it and gotten worse outcomes because of that. I keep the default context _extremely_ small (as small as possible) and rely on invoked slash commands for a lot of what might have been in a CLAUDE.md before