high leverage for most agents:

  - review system prompt + cut it down or remove completely
  - review agents.md file(s), check which ones are loaded, remove or improve them
  - review context spam from tools, skills etc, de-activate all, see what needs re-adding
  - review past sessions to see where tokens get wasted

more advanced:

  - keep sessions short (be conscious about compaction)
  - form a habit of starting new sessions
  - deliberately practice how to effectively get the right context into a new session (vs hanging on to a 'good' session)
  - you can ask the agent to write the essential context into a .md file and have the new session read that
  - learn about forking sessions
  - experiment with starting sessions from a custom-built history/context

a good agents.md file can be small and still effective re helping the agent navigate the code base

that said: you will surprised by how well current models can navigate (way better than last year!)