The argument in one line.
Writers can optimize their Claude Code workflows by using /context to visualize token usage, /stats to track writing patterns and model performance, and /plugins to integrate Notion and design tools directly into their content systems.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A writer or content creator building a Claude Code system who wants to understand how /context, /stats, and /plugins commands optimize their workflow.
- Someone managing multiple writing agents, knowledge bases, and assets inside Claude Code who needs visibility into token usage and context allocation.
- A creator already using Claude Code for newsletters, lead magnets, or content production who wants to troubleshoot degrading output quality.
SKIP IF…
- You're using Claude through the web interface or mobile app — this walkthrough is specific to Cursor and Claude Code editor setup.
- You haven't built a Claude Code system yet and don't have agents, knowledge bases, or custom instructions in place — you'll need that foundation first.
The full version, fast.
Three new Claude Code slash commands turn a writing system from a black box into a measurable workspace. The /context command renders a live breakdown of token usage across system prompt, MCP tools, custom agents, memory files, and free space, so you can spot bloat � MCP servers often dominate while agents cost almost nothing � and prune deliberately. The /stats command surfaces a usage dashboard covering sessions, streaks, peak hours, and model mix, giving writers real visibility into their own habits. The /plugins command opens an official directory of installable integrations, including Notion for two-way document sync and a front-end design plugin that escapes generic AI aesthetics. Together they let you audit, measure, and extend a content workflow without guessing what Claude is doing under the hood.
Free for members
Chat with this breakdown — free.
Sign in and you get 23 free chat messages on us — ask for the hook, quote a framework, find the exact transcript moment, generate a markdown action plan. Bring your own key when you want unlimited.
Create a free account →Where the time goes.
00:00 – 00:29
01 · Intro -- writer-first framing
Alex positions against developer-focused Claude Code content. States the three commands up front. Shows Cursor setup with Claude Code Cheat Sheet visible on the right.
00:29 – 02:35
02 · /context -- what is eating your window
Live demo of /context token-level breakdown. Key surprise: two MCPs (Airtable + Notion) consume 21.6% of context. Custom agents take only 0.1%. Full file tree of writing system revealed.
02:35 – 04:32
03 · /context -- MCP deep-dive and agent roster
Actual MCP token costs shown (Notion tool-by-tool on screen). Six agents: content repurposing, social media writer, newsletter writer, researcher, community engagement, marketing writer. Plans to scale to 15-20 agents.
04:32 – 05:55
04 · /stats -- usage dashboard
325 sessions, Opus 4.5 dominant, current streak, active days, peak hours. Validates $200/month Max plan for all-day use without rate limits.
05:55 – 09:10
05 · /plugins -- Discover page and Notion integration
Official Anthropic plugins gallery (40 plugins). Highlights Notion workspace integration. The on-screen cheat sheet was built live using the Notion MCP. Project-level install scoping recommended.
09:10 – 10:05
06 · frontend-design plugin and CTA
Brief demo of frontend-design plugin for production-grade HTML. Dual CTA: Substack paid tier for cheat sheet and starting folder, plus master classes.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- The /context slash command gives writers a visual breakdown of what is consuming their context window — system prompt, MCPs, agents, and messages — without requiring developer knowledge.
- MCP tools can consume over 20% of the context window — often more than the system prompt itself — which is a surprising finding for non-developers who added MCPs for convenience.
- The /stats command shows session count, active days, peak usage hours, model breakdown, and streak length — giving writers insight into their own Claude Code usage patterns.
- The /plugins command opens a discovery page for 40+ official Anthropic plugins, including Notion and Asana, installable directly from inside Claude Code.
- The Notion plugin connects Claude Code to your Notion workspace so agents can read, search, and update pages without manual copy-paste between tools.
- Claude Code is not only for developers — content repurposing, newsletter writing, social media drafting, and research can all run as named agents inside a writing system.
- Context profiles (JSON files describing your voice, business, and ideal client) are a low-token way to give Claude Code stable context without burning space on long system prompts.
- Agent files inside .claude take up only 0.1% of context — you can have six or more specialized writing agents without meaningful context cost.
- The Opus 4.5 Max plan ($200/month) gives writers unlimited daily usage with their best model — working all day inside Claude Code without hitting rate limits.
- Knowing which MCP is consuming the most context lets you make an informed decision about which connections to keep active and which to disable for a given session.
- A writing system inside Claude Code with agents, knowledge base, newsletters, and visual assets is a real production workflow, not a developer's side project.
- Treating Claude Code as a writing operating system rather than a coding tool unlocks the full power of skills, agents, and plugins for content-first workflows.
Build the lead magnet live on screen.
Non-dev Claude Code playbook
The most powerful thing in this video is not a slash command -- it is the Notion cheat sheet sitting on screen for ten straight minutes while Alex demoed other things.
- Open with this is not for devs, it is for your audience -- one sentence that makes the right people lean in and everyone else self-filter.
- Use your real system as the demo. Show your actual file tree, your actual agents, your actual token counts. No mock-ups.
- Build your lead magnet inside the session you are recording. The audience watches it get made, which is more persuasive than any sales copy.
- Keep a sticky prop pinned in the corner for the entire runtime. Silent CTA for every minute of watch time.
- The /context MCP-cost reveal is a repeatable format: run a diagnostic, surface the surprising number, explain why it matters. Works for any tool with hidden overhead.
Terms worth knowing.
- /context command
- A Claude Code slash command that displays a visualization of everything currently loaded into the context window, showing what files and instructions are consuming space.
- /stats command
- A Claude Code slash command that shows usage statistics for the current session, including token counts, API calls, and cost information.
- /plugins command
- A Claude Code slash command that lists available extensions or integrations active in the current session, helping users manage their tool ecosystem.
- context window
- The maximum amount of text — files, instructions, conversation history — an AI model can process at once, measured in tokens; quality degrades when it fills up.
- context profile
- A JSON file containing structured information about a business, voice, ideal client, or project that is loaded into Claude Code sessions to provide persistent background context.
- knowledge base
- A curated folder of documents, summaries, and reference material that Claude Code reads from to answer questions and generate content with accurate, personalized context.
- Claude skill
- A reusable, self-contained automation script that extends Claude Code's capabilities to perform a specific task, such as publishing a newsletter or generating visual assets.
- writing system
- Alex McFarland's term for the full Claude Code setup — agents, context profiles, knowledge base, skills — configured specifically for content creation rather than software development.
Things they pointed at.
01:28linkClaude skills + Chrome extension video
03:40toolAirtable MCP
03:48toolNotion MCP
07:10toolNotion workspace integration plugin
08:30toolfrontend-design plugin
Lines you could clip.
00:07
“Unlike all of the other creators out there, I really wanna focus on three that I think make the biggest impact on writers and content creators.”
03:10
“The MCP tools take up so much. They take up 21.6%. I was also pretty surprised to see that the agents only take up 0.1%.”
05:28
“I really have the $200 a month max plan, and I never even get close to running into limits, and I work all day long inside of Claude code.”
08:45
“Non generic AI aesthetics, which everybody is getting tired of and which is pretty pretty terrible at this point.”
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
00:00Anthropic just dropped over 10 updates inside of Claude Code. But unlike all of the other creators out there, I really wanna focus on three that I think make the biggest impact on writers and content creators, or really anybody who uses Claude Code for nondevelopment work and for content creation workflows.
00:17Okay? So today, we're gonna be using I'm gonna be using cursor with Claude code.
00:22Now you could be using any code editor tool that you want, but this is what we use for building out our writing system. Now the first update that we wanna look at is the context update. So here on the right side of the screen, you can see I made a Claude code cheat sheet for writers, which will be available to my subtext subscribers, and this is a quick reference for the commands and shortcuts.
00:43But what we're gonna look at is the slash context one. So here, we have Claude code launched already activated, and we're gonna do slash context.
00:51And what this is gonna give us is a visualization of all of the current context that we're using inside of our system here. Alright? And this is very helpful whenever you start, you know, seeing that the quality is degrading or really you're just trying to get a good bird eye view of what is going on inside of your system, you know, what it is using, what is taking up the most space.
01:12So slash context, and we're gonna run it, and you're gonna see that this is what I have here. Now before we start looking at this, if you're not familiar with building up a writing system inside of ClaudeCode, I have some other videos on that that you wanna check out, like my Claude Code master class for writers.
01:27I also have another one on Claude skills and using the Chrome extension. Everything I do inside of Claude Code is for writers and content creators and and sort of non development work like that. Now on the left side, you're gonna see what my system looks like.
01:40We have the Claude the dot Claude file, and this holds the agents that I have. Alright. I have various agents there, my Claude skills.
01:49I also have all my context here, context profiles, if you're not familiar with that, JSON context profiles, which give, you know, these this information in context about my businesses, about my voice, my my ideal client profiles, stuff like that.
02:03We have some deployments that I have, some sites in different, you know, different apps that I created from with inside of my system. I have a knowledge base, and this holds, like like, what it sounds like all of the different knowledge for my system.
02:17I have lead magnets. I have my newsletters, visual assets, YouTube transcripts, everything like that. Then we have the Claude dot m d file, which is our system instructions.
02:26I have a to do list just for you to have an idea of everything I have inside of this system here. Right? So now, you know, before, that was great.
02:33I can see it all there, but I can't really see, you know, what is taking up the most space, what is using the most contacts tokens, but now we can do that. So the first thing you're gonna see here is a visualization of your contacts usage.
02:46We're gonna see that I use Cloud Opus 4.5. We can see how many tokens that's taking and then a breakdown. So we have my system prompt, which is using 3,100 or 1.6%.
02:57We can see my system tools, my MCP tools, my custom agents, my memory files, messages, and free space. And, really, the first thing I noticed right away when I saw this was that the MCP tools take up so much. Right?
03:10So they take up 21.6%. I was also pretty surprised to see that the agents only take up 0.1%, and the the prompt actually takes up 1.6%.
03:20So there were some surprising things that I never really had insight into as, you know, a nondeveloper working inside of here. But, you know, now I can see that. And the MCP tools is important because, really, I only have two MCPs installed here.
03:34The first one is Airtable, which gives my system and CloudCode access to all of my analytics, my Airtable databases. And I also use Notion here, which gives it access to all of, my front facing content and these different pages that I create on Notion.
03:49Example, this this Cloud Code cheat sheet for writers, which is a Notion page that I give to my subscribers and followers. So if you ever start using a lot of MCPs and and you, you know, start running into context problems, then you would be able to decide which ones to get rid of or include.
04:05My agents, you can see all here, I have a content repurposing agent, a social media writer, a newsletter writer, a researcher, community engagement agent, and a marketing writer. Very little space, which is good because I plan on expanding this more and more to hopefully eventually having ten, fifteen, 20 agents doing different writing operations.
04:25So that is really what the context allows you to see. Really cool, really important feature. You should definitely, you know, check-in on that all the time.
04:32Now the second one that I think is important for writers and content creators is the slash stats command. Alright?
04:39And this allows you to view your usage dashboard. So both of these first two are really just about seeing inside of Cloud Code and what you are doing and and what is being used up in your activity. So when we do slash stats, we can see an overview, a monthly overview of our usage.
04:56We could see our favorite model, the total tokens we've used. You know, here I have 325 sessions, current streak, active days, the longest session, longest streak, and and, you know, like, my peak hours.
05:09So you really get some insights into what you're writing and content creation looks like inside of Cloud Code. If you hit tab here, you're gonna see the model usage. For me, you can see a lot of it is Opus 4.5.
05:22I really use Opus 4.5 for everything, for all of my content writing and operations. And that's because I use the max plan on Claude, which allows me to have the, which can translate over into Claude code, transfer over into Claude code. So I really have the $200 a month max plan, and I never even get close to running into limits, and I work all day long inside of Claude code.
05:43So really, you should have no problems there using Opus 4.5. So that is the second essential command that we wanna look at, update that we wanna look at. And the third and last one has to do with plugins.
05:55So this third one, if you put slash plugins, this is what allows you to install plugins inside of Cloud Code. Now, plugin can be a lot of different things.
06:04It can be a package of tools. It can be Cloud skills. It can be MCP servers.
06:09And now, what we have is when you first type in slash plugin, you're gonna see this discover plugins page. And these are the official Anthropic plugins that they included here.
06:20Now you can go through these. There's 40 of them here right now, and there are a couple that really are helpful specifically for writers and content creators and anybody doing that type of nondevelopment work. The first would be something like Asana, allows you to do project management integration, not something I use myself, but I know a lot of people do.
06:38And then the one that I think most of you will be interested in is the if we come down here, we should see a Notion, the Notion workspace integration. Now Notion is a huge one.
06:50Notion, one of the top tools for writers and content creators. So this Notion plugin, if you click enter here, you're gonna see that it's a Notion workspace integration that allows you to search pages, create and update documents, manage databases, and access your team's knowledge base directly from Cloud Code for seamless documentation workflows.
07:09If you look on the right side of my screen here, you can already see that I have Notion. This is where this Claude code cheat sheet is, and I literally created this with the Notion MCP inside of Claude code. So as I was planning up this video with Claude code here on the left, it was connected to my Notion, and in the end, I told it, you know, to make up this Claude code cheat sheet for writers, and it created that.
07:31You know, it can create that by itself inside of Notion. I can also pull information from Notion. You could store, you know, all your newsletters or your articles or your content, digital products.
07:41All of that can be directly connected to your writing system inside of Claude code now very easily. So what you would do here is just install it. You have a couple different options.
07:51You can install it just for yourself inside of this project here. So inside of this folder, inside of this Claude Claude workflow here, or you can install it across your entire local device so that all every time you start new Claude projects now, it's also going to be included.
08:07I recommend just installing it on your project, especially if you're doing different work for different clients or different purposes. That way, just stays clean and separated. And all you're gonna do is click install.
08:17It's gonna install the plug in, and then you're gonna have to connect and and authenticate it through Notion, which is pretty simple. Just logging into Notion, and it will kinda set that up automatically for you. So that is the third one.
08:29We have all these different ones. Another, you know, one I would recommend for writers and content creators is the front end design tool.
08:37So this one allows you to create distinctive production grade front end interfaces with high design quality. This allows you to generate creative polished code that avoids generic AI aesthetics, and it works incredible.
08:49So if you're familiar with any of my other videos or any of my other content, sometimes I have these really nice presentations, I have these really nice HTML sites, and this is all using Claude Coats front end design skill, which is connected here to my system. And, for example, in my folders here, I can have, like, my branding guidelines, my colors, I can have the different visual assets.
09:10And inside of Cloud Code, I can combine all of that that context and visual assets and guidelines with this front end design skill to create, you know, hyper personalized sites or, you know, apps with non generic AI aesthetics, which everybody's getting tired of and which is pretty pretty terrible at this point.
09:31So those are the three updates that I think are super important for writers and content creators. Definitely check them out. If you are not subscribed to my Substack or YouTube, make sure to do that.
09:41And paid subscribers get access to this Cloud Code cheat sheet, but also many other different digital assets and resources, such as the, you know, starting folder right here for you to use inside of Cloud Code, check out the master classes, and then, yeah, you can start using this for now on.
09:57But context stats and plugins, the three new updates from Cloud Code that you should really know about for writing operations.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Anthropic dropped ten-plus updates in one cycle. Alex McFarland ignored nine of them. What he kept -- /context, /stats, /plugins -- is a three-command toolkit for writers who use Claude Code as a writing system, not a compiler. This is the non-developer briefing the rest of YouTube skipped.
Named ideas worth stealing.
01:40model
Context Window Audit
- System prompt
- System tools
- MCP tools
- Custom agents
- Memory files
- Messages
- Free space
Run /context to see token consumption by category. MCPs often surprise -- each installed server loads ALL its tool definitions into context even if unused in-session.
Steal forAny Claude Code setup video. The token breakdown visual lands hard on screen.
07:55concept
Project-scope vs Global plugin install
Install plugins at project scope to keep different client projects clean. Global installs bleed context into every future session.
Steal forClaude Code onboarding content, agency workflows, anyone doing client work
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
09:30newsletter
“If you are not subscribed to my Substack or YouTube, make sure to do that. Paid subscribers get access to this Claude Code cheat sheet.”
Soft and earned. The cheat sheet has been on screen for 10 minutes. By the time the CTA hits the viewer already knows what they want.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
Visual structure at a glance.
