> @-mention files instead of naming them. The file gets attached to your message directly, which saves a Read call, or a search if Claude has to go find it.

I've heard it argued that this is an antipattern. If the file is large, it will read the whole file. With Read or something similar, it can do a targeted search and read only the relevant portion.

Is this still not the case?

Also, since they mention /context: Can anyone explain why /context takes so long to run? It usually takes several seconds, and I've had cases of it taking over a minute.

And why don't they just show the basics in a status line somewhere? Just a plain: "120K/200K tokens" I hate having to type /context just to get this. And I shouldn't need to install an extension.

You can make your own status line with something like "120K/200K Fable 5", it's nice.

> I've heard it argued that this is an antipattern. If the file is large, it will read the whole file. With Read or something similar, it can do a targeted search and read only the relevant portion.

I suspect you're right and that's why they haven't fixed @-search in the desktop app.

I actually don't find myself using it anymore since moving to the desktop app. I went from using various AI extensions in the IDE to Claude Code desktop.

But if that's accurate, why mention it in this post? Maybe because that's the first thing developers will try when moving away from a code editor?

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