The Claude Code Commands You Skip Are All the Same Command
There are over 60 built-in slash commands. Most people use four. Sort the ones you are missing by what they actually do and a pattern appears — almost all of them exist to manage one resource, and it is the one quietly wrecking your long sessions.
- #claude-code
- #workflows
- #context
Almost everyone's Claude Code vocabulary is /clear, /model, /init and /compact. There are over sixty built-in commands. That's fine — nobody needs sixty.
But group the ones people skip by what problem they solve and something jumps out: the large majority manage your context window. Not features, not integrations. Context. Which is exactly the resource that silently degrades a long session while you blame the model.
Here's the map, sorted by the symptom that should make you reach for each one.
"This session has gotten dumb"
/context— the one to learn first. Renders current context usage as a coloured grid, so the thing you've been guessing at becomes visible. Stop estimating./compact [instructions]— summarise the conversation to free space. The optional instructions argument is the underused half: you can tell it what to preserve./clear [name]— new conversation, project memory kept. Cheaper than compacting when the last hour is genuinely irrelevant./rewind— roll back code and conversation to a checkpoint. This one surprises people: it isn't only undo for the transcript, it's an escape from a session that has gone down a bad path with files already changed.
"I don't want to pollute this session"
/btw [question]— pose a question on the side, and it never enters the history. Perfect for "wait, what does this flag do" mid-task./subtask— hand a side task to a subagent. The searching, log-reading and file-scanning happens in its context, and you get back the summary./branch [name]— branch the conversation to try a different direction without losing this one./fork [prompt]— copy the conversation into a new background session.
"I want it to keep working without me"
/goal [condition]— set a condition and Claude works until it's met. Pairs with a check it can't argue with, like a test command./background [prompt]— detach the session as a background agent./batch <instruction>— orchestrate large-scale parallel changes./tasks— list the background work this session started./loop [interval] [prompt]— run a prompt repeatedly on a schedule.
"It keeps asking permission" / "it's burning tokens"
/permissions— the approval rules themselves./fewer-permission-prompts— scans your actual usage and proposes an allowlist. Better than guessing at patterns./effort [low|medium|high|xhigh|max]— the effort dial. Most tasks do not need the top of it, and this is the most direct cost lever you have./usage— token usage and cost./model— switch model and save as default.
"Something is broken"
/doctor— diagnose setup problems./debug [description]— turn on debug logging and troubleshoot./status— current session status.
Two worth knowing about that aren't context at all
/code-review [level] [--fix]— reviews your working diff for bugs, with an apply mode. Distinct from/review, which is a fast read-only pass over a GitHub PR. People mix these up constantly./security-review— checks the diff for vulnerabilities specifically.
One thing that changed
Custom commands and skills have merged. A file at .claude/commands/deploy.md and a skill at .claude/skills/deploy/SKILL.md both give you /deploy and behave the same way — existing commands/ files keep working. Skills just add options: a directory for supporting files, frontmatter controlling whether you or Claude invokes them, and automatic loading when relevant.
The practical consequence is about context again: a skill's body only loads when it's used. So reference material that would be expensive sitting in CLAUDE.md costs almost nothing as a skill. If a section of your CLAUDE.md has grown from a fact into a procedure, that's the signal to move it.
Do this today
Run /context right now, in whatever session you already have open. Look at how much of the window is gone and what's holding it.
Then pick your next big-search question and route it through /subtask instead of asking it directly. Compare the grid before and after. That's the whole argument for learning these, in one measurement.
Sources
Keep reading
More guides like this one.
Your Rules Expire at Compaction. Here's Exactly Which Ones.
When a long session compacts, some of your instructions come back from disk and some silently do not. The split is documented and almost nobody knows it — which is why Claude "forgets your rules" three hours in.
What Anthropic's Own Teams Do Differently in Claude Code
Anthropic published how its internal teams actually run Claude Code — and the loudest wins came from lawyers, marketers, and data scientists, not senior engineers. Here are the five habits worth stealing, with the real numbers behind each one.
Dynamic Workflows in Claude Code: 100 Agents, One Answer
Claude Code can now write its own orchestration plan and run hundreds of subagents in parallel. The parallelism is not the interesting part — the refute step is. Here's how to switch it on, when it pays, and the spec skill it quietly demands from you.