I’ve seen about a million YouTube videos, Shorts, Instagram reels, X posts, and Reddit threads about optimizing Claude Code, reducing token usage, installing the best skills, building agent workflows, and all that stuff. And yes, I’ve stupidly followed some of them too, lmao. I’ve installed skills, plugins and mods without properly understanding whether it was the right thing to do, I know dumb of me, but they looked like genuinely good features, whether Claude Code already supports those features natively, or whether they actually improve anything. For example, I ended up with this context bar above my composer that shows my usages. It’s fine, and I can see why it might be useful, but it’s not necessarily what I wanted piece to piece, I wanted more information like what model was I currently using, what effort? what are the subagents running what effort/model levels? etc. I’d rather have a genuinely useful environment than an ever-growing collection of extensions I barely understand. So I’ve been trying to rethink the whole approach. What I actually want is a Claude Code environment that becomes more useful as I work with it, across different projects and over time. cause bruh I don’t want to spend hella tokens now optimizing every single repo and stuff when I’m not actively working on them, I want it to improve/optimize when I’m using that particular feature, skill-set or working in that repo. kinda like only doing it when it’s necessary and future-proofing, but not making redundant and stale stuff optimized just cause for the sake of it. Not necessarily the usual “spend tokens now to save tokens later” thing, although efficiency is part of it. I want Claude to work with me rather than constantly having to manage Claude itself. For example, I’d like it to: Recognize when I’m working in a new repository, inspect what’s already there, and establish useful project-specific instructions, documentation, skills, or workflows when they’re genuinely needed and keep it updated. Understand which skills, plugins, MCP servers, hooks, and native features are already available before recommending or installing anything else. Recognize recurring mistakes, repeated instructions, and useful workflows, then turn them into appropriate regression tests, scripts, skills, or reusable knowledge. Maintain a small, accessible prompt library and a version-controlled global setup that can be reused across future repositories and even different Claude accounts. Reevaluate existing tools as Claude Code evolves, identify redundant or outdated components, and recommend removing or replacing them instead of endlessly accumulating more stuff. Avoid doing unnecessary optimization work, adding documentation for the sake of documentation, or consuming additional context just to maintain its own configuration. I’m considering keeping the reusable configuration in a dedicated claude Git repository, while using native Claude Code functionality wherever possible. I know this isn’t magical self-improvement or something that runs independently while Claude isn’t active. I’m talking about a maintainable environment that learns useful things from actual work, makes appropriate improvements within its permissions, and doesn’t keep recreating solutions that already exist. I’ve already gone through the “just ask Claude to optimize Claude” approach. I’ve worked through a fairly detailed setup plan, asked Claude to critique the architecture independently, and refined the prompts to prioritize existing capabilities rather than building everything from scratch. But that’s exactly why I’m posting. At some point, asking an AI whether its own proposed system is a good idea only gets you so far. I’d really like some human experience and evidence before treating any of this as a successful approach. Has anyone here actually built or used something similar? I’m especially curious about: What does your setup look like? Do you use global instructions, custom skills, hooks, memory, scripts, a dedicated configuration repository, or something else? cause I know some people don’t use skills at all and instructions are automatically set up regardless by using claude, it’s smart enough to do that lol, and document aswell cause claude.md was setup. Does it genuinely improve your workflow over weeks or months, particularly when switching between repositories and agents? Have you noticed improvements in reliability, context usage, implementation quality, speed, or how often you have to repeat yourself? Have you measured any of those improvements, or compared your setup against a relatively clean Claude Code installation? What turned out to be unnecessary, redundant, counterproductive, or just straight-up overengineering? If you were building something like this today, what would you keep, change, or avoid entirely? I’d also love to see actual examples, configuration structures, reusable prompts, or links to setups people have maintained for a while. Especially the ones that haven’t worked out as expected. I’m not looking to install another 30 skills because someone said they’re essential, or blindly throw more tokens and agents at everything. I’d rather understand what has genuinely helped people and why. I can share the current plan and prompts as a Markdown file if anyone wants to critique them. They’re a proposal, not evidence that the system works. I’ll also report back once I’ve actually spent some time with my current “improved” setup, including what improved, what didn’t, and what I ended up removing. I’m curious whether anyone has already done this successfully, whether you’d even bother building something like it, or whether there’s a much simpler approach I’m overlooking. Because surely the solution to optimizing Claude Code can’t just be endlessly asking Claude to optimize Claude Code. LMAO. Edit: Quick update, I’ve actually started working on this now, lol. I’m currently auditing my existing Claude Code setup and figuring out what genuinely needs to stay, what can be improved, and what should just be removed. Over time, I’ve accumulated a bunch of skills, plugins, hooks, and visual mods from various tutorials without always checking whether they were necessary or duplicated native functionality. Turns out there’s already quite a bit of bloat. xD The first read-only audit has already identified redundant plugins, unnecessary UI modifications, inconsistent configurations between accounts, and functionality that Claude Code already supports natively. Nothing has been removed yet, though. I’m trying to evaluate everything before making changes rather than repeating the same mistake. I’m also expanding the idea beyond Claude Code. Ideally, the reusable knowledge, project conventions, prompts, and workflows should work across Claude, Codex, and whatever agents I use in the future, including local models, with agent-specific integrations only where necessary. Still very interested in hearing from people who’ve already tried something similar, especially if you’ve maintained it across multiple projects or different agents. submitted by /u/raiseCatError
Originally posted by u/raiseCatError on r/ClaudeCode