How do I know when to move from a regular Claude chat to something like Claude Code or another Claude surface, and how do I avoid wasting tokens as a beginner?

The suggested approach is to simply tell Claude your constraints as part of the prompt: e.g., "I have no background in AI, I don't want to use up tokens unnecessarily, and I want to make sure I'm using the right part of your platform for each step — please tell me when it's time to move to a different tool." One member described asking Claude directly whether they should continue in chat or move to Claude Code/other surfaces, and Claude will indicate a good stopping point and even provide a handoff prompt to paste into the new tool. The general guidance: tell Claude about your token concerns and lack of AI background up front, and let it guide you on efficient tool usage.