You’ve seen the basic slash commands. This module covers the commands that experienced Claude Code users reach for once the initial workflow is working — context management, session tools, the bundled skills, and keyboard shortcuts that speed everything up.
Context and Session Management
Every Claude Code session has a context window. /context visualizes it as a colored grid — green for available, yellow for getting full, red for nearly exhausted. When context gets long, /compact compresses the conversation. Pass focus instructions to preserve what matters: /compact focus on the database migration plan.
/branch creates a parallel conversation from the current point, letting you explore two approaches side by side. /rewind rolls back to an earlier point — useful when Claude went down the wrong path. It optionally reverts file changes too, functioning as an undo for both conversation and code.
Session resumption makes long work possible. /rename my-feature saves the current session with a readable name. /resume my-feature picks it back up later with full context intact. Export a session to a file or clipboard with /export for sharing or archiving.
/context
/compact focus on the auth refactor
/branch
/rename auth-refactor-v2
/export auth-refactor-v2.mdBundled Skills
Claude Code ships with built-in skills that work like commands. These are always available without installation.
/simplify reviews recently changed files for code quality, spawning parallel review agents that look at different concerns. /batch <instruction> is for large-scale changes across many files — it plans the work, uses isolated git worktrees, and can coordinate verification and PR-oriented follow-up. /loop 5m check deploy status runs a prompt repeatedly on an interval, useful for polling long-running operations.
/debug enables verbose logging to help diagnose issues with Claude’s behavior or tool use. /claude-api loads the Anthropic SDK reference for the project’s language — it activates automatically when it detects imports from @anthropic-ai/sdk or the Python anthropic package.
/simplify
/batch add JSDoc comments to all public functions in src/
/loop 2m check if the build finished
/debugKeyboard Shortcuts and Power Features
Shift+Tab cycles through permission modes. The official order is default, acceptEdits, plan, and then optional modes like bypassPermissions or auto if they are enabled in your environment. This is the fastest way to switch to plan mode for a complex task and back afterward.
Option+T (macOS) or Alt+T toggles extended thinking — Claude spends more time reasoning before responding. Use /effort to set reasoning depth: auto, low, medium, high, or max where supported. max is the heaviest setting and is only available in some Opus sessions. Ctrl+O enters verbose mode to see tool calls and thinking steps as they happen.
/btw your question asks a side question without adding it to the conversation history — useful for checking a fact or asking about syntax without cluttering the context. Ctrl+B backgrounds a running subagent task so you can give Claude another instruction while it continues working. If you need to kill all background agents, the official shortcut is Ctrl+X Ctrl+K.
The /diff command opens an interactive diff viewer for uncommitted changes — better than reading raw git output when you want to review what Claude has done before committing. /insights generates a session analysis report with statistics on what was accomplished.
# Toggle to plan mode, then back
Shift+Tab
Shift+Tab
/effort high
/btw what's the difference between async and defer on script tags?