Anthropic’s Claude is getting a small but meaningful interaction upgrade: a new **`/btw` command** that lets a session ask a quick side question without derailing whatever the main thread is doing.
The key distinction is that this side channel is designed to be ephemeral. According to Lydia Hallie’s announcement, `/btw` is **read-only**, comes with **no tool access**, and **doesn’t add anything to the conversation history**. Ask the question, get a response, dismiss it—and that response disappears rather than becoming part of the session’s long-term context.
A “side question” that doesn’t pollute the session
For longer, multi-step sessions, keeping context clean can matter as much as getting the right answer. The idea behind `/btw` is that quick clarifications—things that would otherwise interrupt the flow—can be handled without changing the session state.
A couple of constraints are central to how it behaves:
- **Read-only**: `/btw` can’t take actions or modify anything.
- **No tool access**: it won’t reach for tools even if the main session can.
- **No history impact**: it won’t get appended to the running conversation.
- **Dismiss-to-discard**: the answer isn’t kept around after closing it.
Users responding to the announcement framed it as especially handy during more intensive use, including “high thinking” mode.
Source: https://x.com/lydiahallie/status/2031516357918171509