Claude Code sessions silently degrade in quality and cost as context fills up. This guide covers systematic context management using /compact and /clear commands, CLAUDE.md for persistent session state, and .claudeignore for large codebases. Key practices include manually compacting at 60% context utilization with custom prompts to direct summarization, using /clear only when context is poisoned or a full task pivot occurs, and structuring multi-session workflows with CLAUDE.md handoffs so each session starts clean. A divide-and-conquer session strategy breaks features into discrete sessions to avoid quality loss from context saturation.
Table of contents
Table of ContentsThe Hidden Cost of Long-Running Claude Code SessionsMonitoring Your Context UsageThe /compact Command: Your Primary Context ToolThe /clear Command: When to Start FreshSession Persistence with CLAUDE.mdMemory Optimization for Large CodebasesSession Management Cheat SheetPutting It All Together: A Real WorkflowKey TakeawaysSort: