Claude Code in Practice · Module 03

Long projects – Context, progress and shipping

What keeps a project like DevOps Peach on track over weeks of sessions: managing the context window and planning before building, a work log that lets the next session (or another AI) pick up without the chat history, and the checks we run before anything goes live.

Practice interactively →

What you will learn

• Read /context, and use plan mode, /clear and /compact so quality stays high in long sessions
• Keep a work log and task files so any session can continue the work
• Verify changes with validators and screenshots before you trust them
• Commit, push and deploy safely, and know which changes need a server deploy

Lessons

1. Context and plan mode: keeping quality high in long sessions

   After an hour, Claude starts forgetting early decisions. That is the context window filling up, not the model getting worse. What we watch, when we clear, how we compact, and why we plan before every big change.

2. Progress you can hand over: work log, tasks and two AIs

   The chat history is not a project record. We keep a work log in the repository, task files for delegated work and the same house rules for every tool, so any session, Claude or Codex, can pick up where the last one stopped.

3. Verify, then ship: checks, screenshots and deploy

   "Done" from an AI is a claim. Before anything goes live we run the validator, look at screenshots, and follow a short commit and deploy routine, including the step people forget when the server code changed.