One generated file outweighed all 70 hand-written source files, so I redrew what Claude Code may read
I profiled a repository I actually run to see which areas consume the most context. Here is what I found, the deny rules I settled on, how search selectivity changes the math, and the options I considered but rejected.
Choosing Dynamic Workflow Size and Effort From a Ledger, Not a Hunch
Dynamic Workflows went generally available, handing you the workflow size and effort dials. After a week of picking large and watching only the bill grow, here is how to turn Claude Code's OpenTelemetry console output into a ledger and assign size and effort per task type.
Full-Size or Downscaled? A Per-Image Resolution Rule for Opus 4.7's High-Resolution Vision
Opus 4.7 finally read the fine texture in my wallpapers, so I sent everything at full size. My weekly image tokens jumped 2.4x. Here is the preflight that decides resolution and model per image, with the measured savings.
Is This New Wallpaper Too Close to One We Already Ship? Near-Duplicate Detection with a Perceptual-Hash Pre-Filter and Claude Vision
A two-stage pipeline that catches the near-duplicates a SHA256 hash misses — recolored, lightly cropped, re-encoded — by pre-filtering with a perceptual hash and adjudicating only the close pairs with Claude Vision. With measured precision calibration and cost design from running a wallpaper catalog solo.
My Nightly Batch Was Quietly Running on a Bigger Model — Declaring Per-Task Model Ceilings and Enforcing Them
Scatter model names through your code and a cheap batch job will eventually run on an expensive model. Here is a manifest that declares a ceiling per task, a deny-by-default resolver, and a morning audit that catches drift — with working code.
Don't Let the Opus 4.7 Fast Mode Retirement (July 24) Kill Your Unattended Jobs
claude-opus-4-7 fast mode retires on 2026-07-24, and speed: fast starts throwing errors. Here's how to keep unattended pipelines from breaking silently: mechanically detect where fast mode is used, add a fail-closed runtime guard, and migrate to 4.8 with working code.