Claude-Code-Token-Saving-Checklist.md

Your Claude Code bill is too high. Here are 15 things to check, in order of impact.

wc -c ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md

Why: CLAUDE.md is injected into every API call. A 500-line file costs ~$2/day in hidden token overhead.

Why: Since v2.1.100, Claude Code injects ~20K invisible tokens per call (#46917, 196👍).

grep -c "Agent" ~/.claude/projects/*/CLAUDE.md 2>/dev/null

Why: Each subagent gets its own context window. 5 subagents = 5x the cost (#46968).

Why: Idle sessions burn 15-18% of daily quota doing nothing (#50389).

claude --version
npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code@2.1.98

// settings.json
{
  "preferences": {
    "thinkingBudgetTokens": 5000
  }
}

Claude loves to rewrite entire files. Use Edit tool instead of Write.

npx cc-safe-setup

If compaction triggers every 15 minutes, your context is growing too fast. Images, PDFs, and binaries cost 1000s of tokens for zero value.

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [{
      "matcher": "Read",
      "hooks": ["bash ~/.claude/hooks/large-file-guard.sh"]
    }]
  }
}

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• Token Checkup — 30-second diagnostic (paste /cost output)
• CLAUDE.md Analyzer — see how many tokens your instructions cost
• Cost Estimator — calculate real Opus 4.7 costs The Token Book (¥2,500) covers 31 diagnostic patterns with real cost data from 800+ hours of production usage. 10 chapters. Every pattern links to the GitHub Issue that caused it.

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Part of cc-safe-setup — 698 safety hooks for Claude Code.