Lesson

The Cost of Context in Claude Code

Visualize what fills the context window, understand base costs, and switch models wisely so you avoid slowdowns and surprises.

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The cost of context shows up in the Claude Code window. System prompts, enabled tools, your messages, and large inputs (like repomix) all consume tokens you pay for.

See the budget

/context

You’ll get a breakdown: system/tool overhead, messages so far, and free space remaining.

Practical guidelines

  • Prefer precise context (Lesson 03) first; use big bundles only when necessary.

  • Batch expensive operations: run repomix once, then work within that bundle.

  • Use a larger-window model when you truly need it:

    /model sonnet[1m]

  • Tradeoffs exist: more context can improve answers but may increase cost and cause history to compress.