| name | btw-side-question |
| description | - User wants to ask a quick question mid-session without it appearing in conversation history |
/btw — Side Questions Without Breaking Flow
When to activate
- User wants to ask a quick question mid-session without it appearing in conversation history
- User wants to look something up while Claude is actively working, without interrupting the main task
- User asks how to ask a side question, check something quietly, or get a one-off answer without polluting context
- User wants to use the
/btw command or asks about the side chat overlay
- User wants to check a name, path, variable, branch, or config value mid-task without derailing the conversation
When NOT to use
- The question requires tool access (file reads, Bash commands, web search) —
/btw responses have no tool access
- The answer needs to influence what Claude does next in the main conversation — use a regular prompt instead so the answer lands in context
- The user wants a multi-turn side discussion —
/btw is single response only, not a conversation thread
- The user is on the Claude web interface —
/btw is a CLI-only feature
Instructions
Basic usage
/btw <question>
The question sees the full conversation context — everything Claude knows about the current session is available. The response appears as an overlay. It leaves no trace in the chat history: no user message, no assistant message, nothing. Once dismissed, it is gone.
Dismissing the overlay: Press Space, Enter, or Escape.
Desktop equivalent: Cmd+; opens a side chat panel with the same behavior.
What /btw can and cannot do
| Capability | Available |
|---|
| Full conversation context | Yes |
| Prompt cache reuse | Yes (very low cost) |
| Tool access (Read, Bash, etc.) | No |
| Multi-turn exchange | No |
| Persists in history | No |
| Works during active Claude turn | Yes — non-blocking overlay |
Cost
/btw reuses the prompt cache from the current conversation. The incremental cost is the output tokens for the response only — no re-encoding of context. For quick questions, this is effectively negligible.
Good questions for /btw
- "What was that config variable called again?"
- "Which branch am I on in this session?"
- "What's the name of the file we refactored earlier?"
- "Remind me what the Stripe webhook env var is called in this project."
- "What does
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT default to?"
- "Explain what the decorator we added earlier does — quick version."
- "What was the error message from that failed test?"
- "How many files have we modified so far?"
Questions that belong in the main conversation
- "Read
config/database.yml and tell me the connection pool size." — needs Read tool
- "What does
git log --oneline -10 show?" — needs Bash
- "Now that you know X, update the approach." — the answer needs to influence Claude's next action
Example
Scenario: Claude is mid-way through extracting a service class. You are reading the original file on a second monitor and cannot remember which interface name was agreed on earlier in the session.
Rather than typing a message (which would appear in history and potentially distract Claude from its current work), you type:
/btw what did we name the new interface for the payment processor abstraction?
Claude responds in an overlay:
PaymentGateway — defined in the interfaces section around turn 12.
Press Space to dismiss. The main task continues uninterrupted. Nothing appears in the conversation history.
Contrast with a regular prompt:
If you asked the same question as a normal message, it would:
- Appear in the conversation as a user turn
- Potentially interrupt Claude's current chain of reasoning
- Remain in context for all future turns (adding noise)
- Count toward the conversation history that informs subsequent responses
For pure lookups with no downstream effect, /btw is the right tool.
