Claude Code Uses Tokens Before You Type—Here’s How I Reduce Them

Published 25/10/2026

Description

Why is Claude Code already using thousands of tokens before you start coding? In this hands-on walkthrough, I investigate startup context usage and show how I reduce unnecessary overhead from CLAUDE.md instructions, rules, plugins, skills, MCP servers, agents, and built-in tools. Contents: 0:00 - Introduction 0:19 - Description 3:03 - Context - After Install 5:40 - Plugins + MPC 9:39 - Skills 13:24 - Agents 14:27 - Memory 18:39 - System Tools 25:54 - Conclusion I test Claude Code against local models through LM Studio, Ninfer, and Strata, comparing the reported context usage with the requests reaching my inference servers. In my setup, the starting context differed considerably between backends—even before adding project instructions. The goal is not to disable everything. It is to keep the capabilities you need without loading unrelated instructions and tool definitions into every session. The walkthrough covers: Inspecting context usage with /context Comparing startup context across local inference backends Identifying overhead from plugins, MCP servers, skills, and agents Disabling unused integrations and enabling them for relevant projects Using global and project-level settings to tailor your environment Keeping CLAUDE.md focused instead of turning it into a large instruction manual Understanding always-loaded rules versus path-scoped rules Moving detailed guidance into files that Claude can read when needed Testing which built-in tools can be removed with --disallowedTools Creating launcher scripts for different local AI workflows Checking that context reductions do not break the features you rely on In one test, removing selected unused tools reduced the reported system-tool context from approximately 21.6K to 16.1K tokens. I also show how my accumulated rule files contributed substantial startup overhead and how I reorganized them. For local inference, extra input can mean more prompt-processing time, especia