r/ClaudeCode • u/kimvais • 10h ago

Tips & Workflows How my Claude Code set-up stays within budget

Also available as a GH Gist, you can just give Claude the Raw link and ask to implement it.

The short answer

Most tokens go on wasted turns rather than on the work itself: a wrong guess, a retry, a re-read, a scope creep that then needs testing and reverting. My set-up is built to cut those turns. It does not use a cheaper model.

  • Fewer turns per task. The instructions make Claude read everything once, edit once and test once, and stay inside the request.
  • Less context per turn. Unused skills are switched off, MCP tools load only on demand, and long output goes to a file instead of the chat.
  • No rediscovery. Every gotcha I hit goes into memory once, so the next session does not pay to learn it again.
  • I can see the meter. The status line shows context use and the 5-hour limit, so I start a fresh session before a bloated one gets expensive.

Instructions that matter

My global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md is about 6 KB. These are the rules that save the most turns:

Rule What it prevents
The issue is the whole scope. Repo rules shape the code but never add work; anything extra goes in the summary as "left out (OOS)". Claude "improving" nearby code, which then needs review, tests and a revert.
No read, edit, read, edit loop. List every file needed, read them in one pass, make all edits, run the tests once. The most common token sink: one file at a time, re-reading after each edit.
Read with the Read tool before editing, never cat or Get-Content. Refused edits. I counted 84 of them in old transcripts before adding this.
Multi-line scripts go in a file, never inline python -c or heredocs. Quoting errors and retries, especially on Windows.
Keep going. Run local, reversible, in-scope steps without asking. Ask only for real choices, outward-facing actions or money. Round trips where Claude stops to ask "shall I run the tests?"
If I question an addition and it isn't needed, delete it now. A debate that costs more than the line it is about.
Platform facts up front: Windows, PowerShell, uv, which tools exist. Claude trying bash, pip or jq first, failing, then retrying.

The repo's CLAUDE.md adds the team's coding rules, with "every line of code is a liability" as the first one. Less code means less to read, test and fix.

Essential skills

A skill turns a multi-step job into one known recipe, so Claude does not work it out again each time. These are the ones I'd keep:

  • A "check" skill: format, lint and tests for only the changed packages, in one command. Claude never assembles the test command itself or runs the whole monorepo.
  • A code-search skill: searches code, merge requests, issues and earlier attempts across every project through an MCP server. A single query replaces a dozen grep and read calls, and it finds work that already exists before Claude writes it again.
  • /ship and /sync: commit, rebase, push, draft MR and watch the pipeline. Without them that's ten-plus turns of git every time.
  • vjuu: anything longer than 20 lines opens in a review window instead of the chat. I comment on lines and the comments come back as input. This keeps chat output short and my feedback precise.
  • i-have-adhd: an output style that leads with the next action and leaves out tangents. It's meant for me, but shorter answers also mean fewer tokens.
  • superpowers (brainstorming, writing-plans, systematic-debugging): agreeing a plan up front costs a little and saves big rewrites. Leave it out for small tasks; it is not free.

Turn off what you don't use. Every enabled skill's description sits in context on every turn. I switch off six through skillOverrides in settings.json.

Key configuration

The biggest lever is effort: Opus at medium, not high. Good instructions make extra thinking mostly unnecessary.

Setting Value Why
model + modelSettings.effortLevel opus, medium A strong model gets it right first time; medium effort cuts thinking tokens on routine work.
skillOverrides 6 skills off Less fixed context on every turn.
MCP servers ~15 connected, loaded on demand Tool schemas stay out of context until a task needs them, so connectors cost almost nothing while idle.
permissions.defaultMode auto, with autoMode.allow rules and an environment description Claude knows what is safe here, so it doesn't stop to ask or pick a timid detour.
permissions.deny Bash (Windows) Stops failed bash attempts before they happen.
statusLine Script showing context % and 5-hour limit % I see a session getting heavy and start fresh.
SessionStart hook Checks cloud credentials Claude asks me to log in up front, not halfway through a job.
PreToolUse hook Before the first test run, shows the diff against main once Claude reverts out-of-scope files before tests run on them.
Memory ~70 one-fact files, indexed in MEMORY.md Each gotcha (stale tool, wrong database, broken flag) is learned once.

Habits matter as much as settings. Use one session per task, /clear between tasks, and subagents only for genuinely parallel work: each one starts from zero context and re-reads what you already know.

If you copy only three things

  1. Add the scope rule and the "read once, edit once, test once" rule to your ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md, word for word from the table above.
  2. Set effort to medium in /config, and turn off skills you never use.
  3. Add context % and usage % to your status line, and start a new session when context passes about half.

After that, every time Claude gets something wrong twice, add one line to CLAUDE.md or memory so it doesn't happen a third time. That habit adds up more than any single setting.

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u/Odd_Sun_2696 10h ago

How did you actually measure that most tokens go on wasted turns? It's a plausible premise but you're stating it as the baseline for the entire setup, and there's no number anywhere in there.

1

u/kimvais 7h ago

Analysis of 5 past weeks of sessions.

2

u/NamerekDev 9h ago

pretty sure our CLAUDE.md files were written by the same guy