Episode three of the OCDevel Claude Code arc, and the first one that's purely about speed. You can already drive a session from episodes one and two. This one makes you fast: the commands that ship in the box, and the keyboard moves you stop thinking about. What we cover: - **The reframe.** On the 2.1 line, custom slash commands have been merged into skills, so the `/` menu is now one surface mixing built-in commands, bundled skills and workflows, your own skills, plugin commands, and MCP prompts. Type `/` to see exactly what your install has, since a command is only recognized at the start of a message and availability varies by plan and platform. See the [commands reference](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/commands). - **The catalog, grouped by when you reach for it** — setup (`/init`, `/memory`, `/config`), steering (`/model`, `/effort`, `/plan`, `/context`), review (`/diff`, `/code-review`, `/review`, `/security-review`, `/simplify`), the between-sessions family (`/clear`, `/resume` and its alias `/continue`, `/branch`, `/rename`, `/export`), recovery (`/rewind`, `/doctor`), and cost (`/usage`, aka `/cost`). - **The everyday decision: `/clear` vs `/compact`.** Clear starts a fresh conversation (the old one parks in `/resume`); compact keeps the thread and replaces verbatim history with a steerable summary. The rule: clear for unrelated work, compact to keep going. Details in [exploring the context window](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/context-window) and [managing costs](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/costs). - **The pitfall: silent context loss.** Auto-compaction keeps intent and key snippets but drops full tool outputs and intermediate reasoning, and path-scoped rules are lost until a matching file is read again. How to recognize the drift and stay ahead of it with `/context` and focused compaction. - **The safety net and its blind spots.** `/rewind` (or double-Escape) restores code and conversation, but bash side effects aren't tracked. Checkpoints are local undo; git is permanent history. See [checkpointing](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/checkpointing). - **The keyboard.** The four steering keys (Escape to interrupt, double-Escape to rewind, Shift+Tab for modes, Ctrl+C), history recall with Ctrl+R, the fast-input symbols (`@` files, `!` shell, `#` memory, `/` commands), plus `/btw` for a tool-less side question. Reference: [interactive mode](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/interactive-mode). Recency note for mid-2026: `/vim` moved into `/config` → Editor mode (removed in 2.1.92), `/cost` is now an alias for `/usage`, and the auto-compact threshold is version-dependent. Verify against `/help` in your own install. Next episode: writing your own custom slash commands.