The /context Audit Habit

The /context command is your token budget dashboard. It shows exactly what is consuming your context window: system prompt allocation, tool registrations, MCP overhead, CLAUDE.md size, conversation history, and compaction reserve. Run it at the start of every session and you will know exactly how much working space you have before typing your first prompt. Run it mid-session and you can see how quickly your conversation history is growing.

Build the habit of auditing weekly. Open /context and look for three things. First, MCP bloat — are you carrying tool registrations for servers you are not using? Second, CLAUDE.md size — has it grown since last week? Third, compaction frequency — is auto-compaction triggering earlier in your sessions than it used to? If compaction is hitting earlier, something in your overhead has grown. Find it and trim it. The developers who maintain the best AI output quality are the ones who treat /context like a performance profiler.

Auto-compaction is not a failure state — it is an expected part of long sessions. But understanding when and why it triggers helps you plan your work. If you know a task will require deep context (a multi-file refactor, a complex debugging session), start with /clear to get a fresh window, verify your overhead is minimal with /context, and then dive in. You will get more high-fidelity tokens for your actual work instead of carrying the debris of a previous conversation.