Steering What Survives a /compact
You're 90 minutes into a session that's about to auto-compact, and you want the resulting summary to keep the list of files you've touched and the API contract you agreed on — not the exploratory dead ends along the way.
What should you do?
The correct answer is "Run /compact with focus instructions."
/compact Focus on the API changes and the files we modified lets you
steer what the summarisation step preserves, rather than accepting
whatever auto-compact would keep on its own. /clear discards
everything instead of summarising, so it's the wrong tool when you
want continuity. Waiting for auto-compact and editing the result
afterward isn't how it works — the summary is generated once, from
whatever instructions (or lack of them) were in effect at the time —
and CLAUDE.md is for standing rules, not a place to stash one
session's exploratory dead ends.
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