本文由 AI 分析生成
建立時間： 2026-05-25 來源： https://x.com/0x_kaize/status/2038286026284667239
Summary
Claude counts tokens, not messages — and the quadratic growth of token costs in long conversations (Total = S × N(N+1)/2) means message 30 costs 31x more than message 1. This guide provides 10 concrete habits to reduce token consumption: editing prompts instead of follow-ups, starting fresh every 15-20 messages, batching questions, using Projects for recurring files, leveraging memory settings, disabling unused features, using Haiku for simple tasks, distributing work across the day, working during off-peak hours, and enabling overage as a safety net.
Claude 計算 token 而非訊息數，長對話的 token 成本呈二次方增長（第 30 條訊息的成本是第 1 條的 31 倍）。本文提供 10 個具體習慣降低 token 消耗，包括編輯提示詞而非追加、每 15-20 條訊息開新對話、批次提問、善用 Projects 快取等。
Key Points
- Token cost formula: Total = S × N(N+1)/2; at 500 tokens/exchange, 30 messages = 232k tokens vs 500 for message 1
- Fix: click Edit on original message to replace instead of appending to conversation history
- Start fresh every 15-20 messages; summarize context → copy → new chat → paste as first message
- Batch multiple questions into one prompt: saves context reloads and gives Claude better full-picture answers
- Projects feature caches uploaded files; recurring PDFs/docs uploaded once don’t re-tokenize
- Rolling 5-hour window (not daily reset); peak hours (5-11am PT weekdays) burn limits faster as of March 2026
- Haiku mental model: Haiku for drafts/simple tasks, Sonnet for real work, Opus for deep thinking
Insights
The 98.5% statistic (one developer found 98.5% of tokens went to re-reading history, only 1.5% to actual output) is extreme but directionally accurate for very long sessions — it quantifies why context discipline matters more than model selection. The peak-hours multiplier (same query costs more during peak hours) is underappreciated, especially for non-US users who may be hitting US peak hours during their own afternoon. Note: this file is a duplicate of the non-”1” version with identical content.
Connections
Raw Excerpt
Claude doesn’t count messages. It counts tokens.