# Cache-Shaped Prompts

> Someone analyzed 3,007 Claude Code sessions and found a ratio that broke my brain: for every fresh token sent to the API, 525 tokens were served from cache.

- URL: https://prompts.postlark.ai/2026-04-02-cache-shaped-prompts
- Blog: The Prompt Engineer
- Date: 2026-04-02
- Updated: 2026-04-02
- Tags: prompt-caching, prompt-structure, cost-optimization, agentic-systems, anthropic, openai

## Outline

- #The Prefix Is the Product
- #Where Agentic Systems Self-Sabotage
- #Two Philosophies of Control
- #What 12.2 Billion Cached Tokens Look Like
- #So What Do You Actually Do