Does /clear lose my progress?

Not your saved progress (XP, completions, files on disk). It only clears the conversation context — the messages and file contents Claude is currently holding in memory. Your actual work is untouched.

How often should I /compact?

When a long session starts feeling sluggish or Claude seems to forget things you said earlier. That's usually a sign the context is full. /compact summarises it and makes room.

No. Once you clear, the conversation context is gone. If you might need continuity, use /compact instead — it preserves a summary.

/clear vs /compact in Claude Code

Two commands, both free up context space, but they work very differently. Using the wrong one is one of the most common small mistakes in Claude Code.

The one-line version

/clear wipes the conversation completely. Fresh start. Nothing carried forward.
/compact summarises the conversation into a shorter version and continues from there.

/clear — the fresh start

/clear

Everything in the current conversation is gone — messages, file contents Claude read, the whole thread. You’re starting from zero, as if you just opened a new session.

Use /clear when:

You’re switching to a completely unrelated task
The current context is full of noise from a finished task
You want Claude to approach something with fresh eyes, no baggage

Don’t use it when you’re mid-task and still need the conversation history. That context is gone and won’t come back.

/compact — the summary

/compact

Claude reads the entire conversation, writes a concise summary of what matters, and replaces the full history with that summary. The thread continues — you don’t lose the plot — but the raw details are compressed away to free up space.

Use /compact when:

You’re in a long session and it’s getting sluggish
Claude seems to forget things you said earlier (the context is full)
You want to continue the same task but need more room

Don’t use it when the conversation is already short (nothing to gain) or when you’re about to switch topics entirely (use /clear instead — a summary of irrelevant work is still irrelevant).

Side by side

	`/clear`	`/compact`
What it does	Wipes everything	Summarises and continues
Context after	Empty	Compressed summary
Continuity	None — fresh start	Yes — thread continues
Best for	Task switch	Long session, same task
Risk	Lose useful context	Summary might drop a detail
Undo	No	No (but less destructive)

The daily rhythm

A good session hygiene pattern:

Start a task — work naturally
Session gets long → /compact to free space and keep going
Task is done, switching to something new → /clear to start fresh
Repeat

The single most common cause of “Claude got worse halfway through” is a context window packed with stale information from a previous task. A well-timed /clear between tasks, or a /compact during a long one, is the fix.