claude-token-efficient is a single instruction file that tells Claude to respond more briefly, reducing unnecessary output and token use during coding work. It is for people using Claude Code or other models that read project context. The catalogue entry is the project's drop-in instruction file.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to drona23/claude-token-efficient. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/drona23/claude-token-efficient/main/CLAUDE.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/drona23/claude-token-efficientWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/drona23/claude-token-efficient/claude-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/drona23/claude-token-efficient/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/drona23/claude-token-efficient/claude-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/drona23/claude-token-efficient/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/drona23/claude-token-efficient/claude-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00082 | $0.00082 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00033 | $0.00033 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00016 | $0.00016 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00008 | $0.00008 |
Grade A, and why
claude-token-efficient CLAUDE.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2mo ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
What it actually says
Approach
- Read existing files before writing. Don't re-read unless changed.
- Thorough in reasoning, concise in output.
- Skip files over 100KB unless required.
- No sycophantic openers or closing fluff.
- No emojis or em-dashes.
- Do not guess APIs, versions, flags, commit SHAs, or package names. Verify by reading code or docs before asserting.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 2mo ago First seen · 8 lines · 82 tokens per session scan A 6656125f2b4f
claude-token-efficient CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository drona23/claude-token-efficient (6,149 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 82 tokens to every session, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
claude-token-efficient CLAUDE.md compared with instructions from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| claude-token-efficient CLAUDE.mddrona23/claude-token-efficient | Instructions file | 6.1k | 4mo ago | MIT | A | 82 | Claude Code |
| vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 9,719 | GitHub Copilot |
| next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js | Instructions file | 143k | yesterday | MIT | A | 7,461 | Codex, OpenCode |
| langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain | Instructions file | 149k | yesterday | MIT | A | 4,680 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 5,516 | GitHub Copilot |
| vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 3,093 | GitHub Copilot |
| deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness | Instructions file | 274k | 2d ago | MIT | A | 4,313 | Codex, OpenCode |