Working well: habits that compound
Scope the task, give the right context, keep the window clean, plan, and verify.
1Same task, two sessions. Why does one burn nine times the tokens?your turn
"fix my app"vague goal
22 turns
···"fix the 500 on POST /login"scoped goal
4 turns
···Bar length = turns the session took. Tokens revealed after your guess.
Same context window, same rot, same loop. So why two such different bills?
Which session burned more tokens?
→ continue← backR replay
You're driving the harness well, but how does it plug into your tools and data? One protocol connects them.
6.8 MCP: the universal connectorCommon questions
What is "Working well: habits that compound" about?
Scope the task, give the right context, keep the window clean, plan, and verify.
What problem does it solve?
You know how it all works, but your sessions still wander and burn tokens. Which habits actually fix that?
What will I be able to do after this lesson?
You can apply daily habits, scoping, context hygiene, verifying, to get more out of AI coding tools.
What comes next?
You're driving the harness well, but how does it plug into your tools and data? One protocol connects them.