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Claude Code Context Window Cheat Sheet
The token costs, commands, and decision frameworks from 12+ months of daily Claude Code use, distilled into a single two-sided reference card. Print it, pin it, or keep it open in a tab while you work.
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Based on 12+ months of daily Claude Code use in production codebases. Written by Damian Galarza, fractional CTO and AI engineering consultant.
What's inside
- Context window anatomy — visual breakdown of where your 200k tokens actually go (system prompt, tools, MCP servers, agents, memory, autocompact buffer)
- MCP server token costs — real measurements for Sentry (~19k), Memory (~5.6k), Context7 (~1.8k), Playwright (~14.3k), and the rule of thumb for estimating any tool
- Decision flowchart — when to use a subagent vs. skill vs. MCP server vs. custom agent vs. inline work
- When to /clear vs. /compact — the decision tree, including the warning signs that you need a full reset
- CLAUDE.md optimization checklist — five items to audit so your project config isn't burning tokens on stale instructions
- The "lost in the middle" rule — what it means for your CLAUDE.md structure and long conversations