Claude Code and Cowork have a hidden menu of shortcuts you trigger with a forward slash. Most founders never open it. Here is the short list that matters, what each one does in plain English, and the exact moment it saves you time in your business.
There is a whole layer of Claude that most people never touch. Type a forward slash inside Claude Code or Cowork and a menu appears: dozens of one-word commands that do the thing you were about to explain in a paragraph. Plan before acting. Remember your business. Undo a bad change. Run a report every Monday without you.
You do not need to memorize all of them, and you definitely do not need to be technical. The full list runs past 90 commands, and plenty of those are for engineers configuring servers. This guide cuts it down to the 15 a founder actually reaches for, grouped by when you would use them, each with the specific thing it saves you.
Read it once, star the three or four that fit how you work, and you will stop doing by hand what a single slash already does for you.
These three teach Claude who you are so you stop re-explaining your business at the start of every session.
Type /help, or just a forward slash on its own, and Claude shows you the full menu of commands available to you right now. It is the map. Instead of wondering whether a shortcut exists for what you want, you see the whole list in a second and pick one.
Run /init at the start of a project and Claude writes a short memory file about it. From then on it already knows the basics instead of asking you to describe your brand, your niche, and your preferences every single time you sit down to work. You explain yourself one time, not one hundred.
Type /memory to open that memory file and add or edit what Claude should always remember: your ideal client, your offer names, your tone, the way you like things done. This is the difference between an assistant who knows you and one you have to onboard from scratch each morning.
These six are the day-to-day controls that keep a working session clean, fast, and recoverable.
Type /plan and Claude switches into plan mode: it lays out exactly what it intends to do and waits for your yes before touching anything. This is the one that saves you the most rework. On any task with real stakes, you catch a wrong turn while it is still a sentence, not after it has produced the wrong thing.
When answers start to feel sluggish or forgetful, type /context to see a map of what is currently filling Claude's working memory. It tells you why performance dipped so you can act instead of guessing, usually by clearing or compacting.
A good working session gets long, and long sessions get foggy. Type /compact and Claude summarizes everything so far into a tight brief, keeping the thread while dropping the bloat. You keep momentum instead of starting the whole task over.
Moving from your content plan to your finances in the same window? Type /clear to wipe the slate for a fresh task so old context does not bleed in. It saves you the confusion of Claude referencing something from an hour ago that has nothing to do with what you are on now.
Type /rewind to roll the conversation, the files, or both back to an earlier point. When a change goes sideways, you get the last good version back instead of trying to manually unpick what happened. This is your safety net.
Stepped away from a project for a few days? Type /resume to reopen an earlier session by name with the full history intact. You skip the twenty minutes of rebuilding context and start from where the two of you actually stopped.
These four decide how Claude runs, what it can touch, and which of your tools it can reach.
Type /model to switch which model you are working with. A quick caption and a deep strategy document do not need the same horsepower. Matching the model to the task keeps the small work cheap and fast, and gives the big work the depth it deserves.
Type /permissions to decide what Claude is allowed to do on its own and what it has to ask you about first. You draw the line once. That is what lets you hand off real work without hovering, because you already chose what it can and cannot touch.
Type /mcp to manage Claude's connections to the tools your business already runs on, things like your email, calendar, and documents. Once those are wired in, Claude works across them directly instead of you copying and pasting between apps all day.
Type /skills to list your skills, the saved procedures Claude can run on command. Your brand voice, your content format, your weekly report. This is how you stop rebuilding a workflow you already built and start reusing it with one word.
The last two put work on autopilot and keep an eye on what it costs.
Type /schedule to create a task that runs automatically: every morning, every Monday, whenever you choose. Your weekly numbers, your inbox summary, your content prompts can arrive without you remembering to ask. You build the routine once and it keeps running in the background.
Type /usage to see your cost, your limits, and your activity at a glance. No end-of-month surprise, no guessing whether you are near a cap. You watch the meter while you work, so the spend stays a decision instead of a shock.
One tip that ties them together: you do not have to remember any of this perfectly. Type a forward slash and the menu appears, then type a few letters to filter it down. The commands above are simply the ones worth recognizing when you see them.
I run a business and I am learning to work with you inside Claude Code. Based on how I actually work, walk me through which of these commands would help me most and when to reach for each one: /help, /init, /memory, /plan, /context, /compact, /clear, /rewind, /resume, /model, /permissions, /mcp, /skills, /schedule, /usage. Ask me two or three quick questions about my workflow first, then give me a short personalized starter list.
Fifteen commands, grouped by the moment you would use them. Learn the four in the first two sections and you have covered setup and safe daily work. The rest you will pick up the first time you need them.
Commands are the small hinges. The real leverage comes from building these into repeatable systems that run your business with intelligence, not just effort. That is exactly what we build inside Her AI Systems™.
A slash command is a shortcut you type with a forward slash at the start of your message inside Claude Code or Cowork, like /plan or /help. Instead of writing out a full instruction, one short command triggers a built-in action such as planning before acting, clearing context, or scheduling recurring work.
No. Most of the commands that save a founder time have nothing to do with code. /plan makes Claude think before it acts, /memory keeps your business facts on file, /schedule runs work automatically, and /help shows you the whole menu. You type the command and Claude does the rest.
Start with /help to see everything available, then /init and /memory so Claude remembers your business, then /plan so it lays out its steps before touching anything. Those four cover setup and safe day-to-day work.
They work inside Claude Code and Cowork. Type a forward slash to see the full list filtered to what is available to you, then type a few letters to narrow it down.
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