Claude Code users debate /compact vs /clear to save tokens
After a reset in Claude Code, one user asked a single follow-up task continuing prior work and burned through their entire token allowance in under 10 minutes, because they forgot to run /compact beforehand. This sparked a question to the community about how to keep a long project going across sessions without Claude chewing through tokens, while still having Claude remember what has already been done and what remains. The user specifically asked whether others save progress notes to a separate markdown file and then run /clear, or use some other approach.
Key points
- After a resets, leftover context from a prior long task can cause a follow-up request to burn tokens fast
- Skipping /compact before continuing work risks exhausting the token allowance within minutes
- Some users save progress to a separate markdown file, then run /clear to reset context before reloading it
- There's no consistent best practice yet for managing token use across , long-running projects