Compress Your Claude.md: Cut 60-70% of System Prompt Bloat in Claude Code

Re:Compress Your Claude.md: Cut 60-70% of System Prompt Bloa... by hu3 on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @08:47AM (#47151387)

> Strip markdown decoration: Headers (##), bold (*), italic (*), horizontal rules (---). These are visual aids Claude doesn't need.

In my experience, LLMs do understand header levels in markdown. So removing these is detrimental.

---

> Compress table formatting: Markdown tables with alignment rows and padding are verbose for what they communicate.

This is a good idea imo.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Compress Your Claude.md: Cut 60-70% of System Prompt Bloa... by jchilcher on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @11:49AM (#47154072)

Fair point — headers do carry semantic meaning for section navigation, especially in longer files. My experience was that removing them didn't change behavior noticeably, but I was working with fairly flat files. If your CLAUDE.md has deep nesting where heading hierarchy actually matters for context, keeping them makes sense. The table compression is probably the higher-ROI change for most people regardless.

[ Parent | on HN ]