Hell, claude even makes that part of the standard workflow, with /compact; cleverly using the llm itself to summarize the previous context

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furyofantares 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

/compact is really poor imo. Quality just falls off a ledge after it.

I much prefer to choose tasks that can be done with 25%+ context left and then just start the next task with fresh context.

If I'm getting low on context I have it summarize the plan and progress in a text file rather than use /compact and then start a fresh context and reference that file, which I can then edit and try again if I'm not getting good results.

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bryanlarsen 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Once you see that message it's time to finish the task without AI because Claude will start crapping over your codebase if you let it continue.

	▲	ewoodrich 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I just got burned by that, it compacted and then immediately dropped what it was in the middle of working on to redo something it had already finished half an hour earlier. Which, predictably, sent it into "systematically destroy the entire working codebase" mode because the code it was now reading didn't match expectations of the original instructions. So it started extrapolating like "huh, it looks like the function already exists, therefore, user must have meant [bizarre completely out of left field guess] instead" in an escalating loop of confusion and code mangling.