Use /clear to Start Fresh When Your Session Context Gets Confused or Stale
Long sessions accumulate context — and sometimes that context becomes a liability. When Claude references code that no longer exists, applies patterns from earlier in the session that you've since changed your mind about, or seems confused by conflicting instructions, /clear is the reset button.
> /clear
Everything goes — conversation history, file reads, tool call results, all of it. Your next prompt starts from zero, as if you just opened a fresh Claude Code session. But you stay in the same terminal, same directory, same CLAUDE.md — you don't need to restart the CLI.
This is different from /compact:
/compact |
/clear |
|
|---|---|---|
| Keeps context | Yes (summarized) | No (wiped) |
| Frees space | Some | All |
| Use when | Session is long but on track | Session is confused or stale |
Signs you need /clear instead of /compact:
- Stale references — Claude mentions files, functions, or variables that don't exist anymore because you deleted or renamed them earlier
- Contradictory context — you changed direction mid-session and Claude is mixing old and new approaches
- Wrong assumptions — Claude keeps applying a pattern you corrected but it's still in the compacted context
- Switching tasks — you finished one task and want to start a completely different one without cross-contamination
A common pattern is to /clear when switching between unrelated tasks in the same project:
> [finish debugging the auth bug]
> /clear
> [start working on the new reporting feature]
This prevents Claude from carrying over debugging mindset, file reads, and assumptions from the previous task into the new one.
When the context is helping, compact it. When the context is hurting, clear it.
via Claude Code
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Not every task needs deep reasoning. Type /fast to switch Claude Code into fast mode — same model, faster output — for quick edits, simple questions, and routine changes. Toggle it off when you need Claude to think harder on complex problems.
Long sessions eat through your context window as conversation history piles up. Type /compact to summarize the conversation so far and reclaim space — keeping Claude's understanding of what you're working on while freeing up room for more work.
Type /cost at any point to see how many tokens you've used in the current session, how much it's costing, and which operations are consuming the most context — so you can make informed decisions about when to /compact, /clear, or switch models.