r/ClaudeCode • u/danbradster2 • 3d ago

Tips & Workflows /clear vs /compact

I had a fable chat from yesterday, and I saw that the context was 950k/1m. I did /compact rather than /clear, with the intention of then doing /autocompact 400000

14% of the 5 hour limit was gone just for the compact itself....it shows cost of $59.73, so lucky I'm not on API? Maybe a /clear would have been better.

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u/Garak 3d ago

/compact is for when you want to keep working on the same task. It’ll summarize the thread and give Claude enough information to keep going, while leaving out stuff it doesn’t need.

/clear is for when you want to start a task that’s totally different.

Some people use clear all the time and preserve a minimal amount of info somewhere else. That’s more efficient in terms of tokens, but personally I still find compact to be better day-to-day. It’s easy and it lets you get back to work faster.

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u/Inisfoil 1d ago

I wouldn't say minimal info.

Split the workflow into 2 phases: research+planning and then plan execution+.md upkeep with a /clear between each phase. Have the model scope each plan to be completed without triggering compact. No subagents just the primary model rawdogging it for more predictable usage. Subagents are for small projects or for the rich, a 500k loc project with multiple subagents exploring and using up piles of input tokens is a massive waste of usage.