Claude Code
Getting more out of Anthropic’s coding agent: context, plans, rules, and subagents.
Plan Before You Prompt: Review the Plan Before Your AI Agent Touches Code
Put your coding agent in plan mode before it edits a single file. One keystroke gets you a reviewable, editable plan instead of a surprise diff.
Tip #012Keep Your Rules File Lean
Your CLAUDE.md gets loaded into every request — a bloated rules file wastes context and dilutes instructions. Here’s what belongs in it and what doesn’t.
Tip #013Give Grunt Work Its Own Agent: Subagents for Context Isolation
How Claude Code subagents isolate context — delegate noisy research to a helper agent with its own window so only the summary lands in your main thread.
Tip #014Make It Ask First: The 95%-Confidence Prompt
Stop revision loops before they start — tell Claude Code to ask clarifying questions until it’s 95% confident, then push it to name what you’re missing.
Tip #015Keep Your Context Fresh: Fighting Context Rot in Claude Code
Long Claude Code sessions quietly lose quality — context rot. Learn when to /clear, when to /compact with keep-notes, and how to watch your context percentage.
Tip #209The Rule Your Agent Keeps Ignoring
When an AI coding agent repeatedly breaks a rule you wrote down, the cause is usually file length, not weak wording. Here’s the diagnostic and the fix.
Tip #210Your Helper Agent Never Read Your Rules
A delegated subagent starts with an empty context and may never receive your project rules at all. What actually loads, what doesn’t, and when to fork instead.
Tip #211Editing Your Rules Mid-Session Does Nothing
Rules files are read once at session start and held in memory, so a mid-session edit is invisible until you restart, clear, or compact. Why, and the three ways to reload.
Tip #212Your History Is Deleted In 30 Days
Claude Code stores session transcripts locally and sweeps them after cleanupPeriodDays — 30 days by default, with no warning. How to change it and what’s exempt.
Tip #213Parallel Agents Cost Seven Times More
Agent teams use roughly 7x the tokens of a standard session in plan mode. That multiplier applies to teammates, not to summarizing subagents, which are the context-saving option.
Tip #214The Cheaper Model That Costs More
Prompt caching is a per-model prefix match, so switching models mid-conversation reprocesses your whole context at full price — twice, if you switch back.
Tip #215Stop Being The Verification Loop
If nothing checks your agent’s work, you are the check and every error waits for a human. Four escalating verification layers, and how to scope a reviewer so it doesn’t invent findings.
Tip #216The Commands Nobody Types
A tour of built-in Claude Code commands most people never open: /doctor, /insights, /branch, /btw and /subtask — what each does and when it’s actually the right move.
Tip #217Your Agents Can’t Talk Without Names
Claude Code sessions can message each other, but only a named session is addressable. How to name them, list what’s reachable, and where messages actually travel.
Tip #218Another Agent’s Message Is Not Your Approval
A message from one Claude Code session to another can’t grant consent, change configuration, or execute a command. The trust boundary between your agents, and how to tighten it.
Tip #219Your Subagent Didn’t Vanish
A finished subagent can be resumed with its full history — every tool call, result and piece of reasoning — instead of spawning a blank replacement. How resuming works and why naming matters.
Tip #220Your Agent Can’t Test What You Never Gave It
Agents stop at unit tests because their reach stops there — no browser, no CLI, no throwaway credentials. Ask what it needs to verify end to end, then build that once.
Tip #221Delete Your Scaffolding For One Task
Most AI-coding setups are fossils built for what models needed a year ago, and nobody re-tests them. Run one real task with your rules and skills moved aside, and compare.
Tip #222Your Best Skill Never Runs
Skills are selected from their description, not their content — and when you have many, the least-used descriptions get trimmed from the listing first, making rare skills unfindable.