There are two ways out of a bloated or poisoned session. The simple one comes first.
Starting fresh
Also called /clear, Context reset
Ending the conversation and beginning a new one with empty context, then giving it only what it needs. Your files and commits stay. What it read and said is gone, unless it was written down.
It costs nothing, and it removes every wrong turn at once. People resist because it feels like losing progress, but anything worth keeping should be in a file anyway. Do it between unrelated tasks, and after two failed corrections.
Say it to your agent
“We are moving to something unrelated. Commit what is done and write anything undecided to docs/handoff.md. I will run /clear, then point you at that file.”