Dear seasoned prompters, I write to you from the land of fake devs. Its true, we over here don’t really know what we are doing and I myself have managed to pick up a client that wants some life breathed into their Wordpress site that, once upon a time, a real dev built bespoke for them. Now, that dev has migrated to the land of no-longer-a-dev-but-am-now-a-hosting-provider and there is no documentation for the site. Claude Code has come to the rescue for 20 gold coins a month and has been great this week for all the things I have required of him. However, I have come across some barriors in my way that, whilst Claude’s scroll (documentation) helps, I have thought to seek the wisdom of this guild. I ask for mercy and patience when reading through my quarms, they may be beneath you but they are above me. I have then provided you with my current approach to these, so as to provide as much context to you wise dwellers. Current quarms: I don’t want usage to go so fast (an obvious one) I want to ensure Claude and Claude Code are able to clearly remember what is going on when switching conversation (with memory turned on) and am not sure how much and how best to remind it. I am wondering if I am not utilising Claude Code’s full ability with subagents etc to produce accurate work. Current approach: I have heard of giving Claude an additional 20 gold coins under a different name (purchase 2 accounts) so that I can switch between their usage when one runs out. But, I wonder if there is just a preferable way to approach projects. I am using Opus 4.6 in Claude to help me plan the project and guide my prompts for Claude Code. Claude is my site architect and Claude Code is the builder (Claude knows this but not Claude Code as it doesn’t seem relevant for him). Should I instead be using Sonnet in Claude to reduce usage as my planning helper? My current workflow is as such: I feed back the result of Claude Code’s execution for Claude’s review so that he is aware of what is going on, and we go through the next prompt to give to Claude Code. This back and forth, I feel, may be redundant. It may make sense irl to have an architect know the current status of the building being built - but minute by minute updates (which this essentially is) may be too granula and be feeding unnecessarily on my alloted usage amount. I am also concerned of circular reasoning and accidentally pushing myself out of the drivers seat by constantly referring to Claude with every answer just so I don’t have to catch him up to speed each time I want something useful. I make sure to use XML tags where I can, and provide as much context and encouragement with examples for what I am looking for, sometimes spending nearly an hour (crazy) writing one prompt for Claude to maximise my output from him. I have frequently used the following when starting a new conversation but wonder, does the role and the preferred method of response have to be stated every single time? I want to be able to rely on a long conversation with Claude without the compacting or complexity showing up as deficiencies in Claude’s responses. Mentioned above, my commonly used prompt for a conversation beginning:"You are my guide on this project. Your context window will be automatically compacted as it approaches its limit, allowing you to continue working indefinitely from where you left off. Therefore, do not stop tasks early due to token budget concerns. As you approach your token budget limit, save your current progress and state to memory before the context window refreshes. Always be as persistent and autonomous as possible and complete tasks fully, even if the end of your budget is approaching. Never artificially stop any task early regardless of the context remaining. <avoid_excessive_markdown_and_bullet_points> When writing reports, documents, technical explanations, analyses, or any long-form content, write in clear, flowing prose using complete paragraphs and sentences. Use standard paragraph breaks for organization and reserve markdown primarily for inline code , code blocks ( … ), and simple headings (###, and ###). Avoid using bold and italics. DO NOT use ordered lists (1. …) or unordered lists (*) unless : a) you’re presenting truly discrete items where a list format is the best option, or b) the user explicitly requests a list or ranking Instead of listing items with bullets or numbers, incorporate them naturally into sentences. This guidance applies especially to technical writing. Using prose instead of excessive formatting will improve user satisfaction. NEVER output a series of overly short bullet points. Your goal is readable, flowing text that guides the reader naturally through ideas rather than fragmenting information into isolated points. </avoid_excessive_markdown_and_bullet_points> For Claude Code, running in Cursor, in the Wordpress directory, I have asked since the beginning that there be a PROJECT_LOG.md that is updated when necessary and is read whenever a new instance/conversation is started so to get him quickly up to speed with what is already known and where we are. Is this a usual way of working? I feel I may be losing nuances of discovery when switching between instances before compaction happens. Here lies the question - is compaction seriously bad? And how else can I quickly keep each instance aware and up to date when starting a new conversation? I have installed oh-my-claudecode and am getting used to using it as it came recommended as a way to maximise Claude Code’s processing power and efficiency. Are there any other commonly used plugins that are seen as just essential for a coding workflow. Are there any resources that I can be pointed to that outline how the wisest of you are approaching workflow? Is my workflow just plain stupid? I humbly thank you for taking the time to read the scribbles of a non dev, a noob, and seek the wisdom of those before me. P.S. i am not entirely lost so don’t hold back on the technical stuff Thanks, Kairos submitted by /u/Kaiross__
Originally posted by u/Kaiross__ on r/ClaudeCode
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