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Project Instructions (CLAUDE.md)

Brief Claude with durable project context.

What goes in CLAUDE.md

Project context (what this is, who uses it, why it exists), conventions (code style, doc format, naming), glossary (terms specific to this project), do/don't list (patterns to use, anti-patterns to avoid).

What does NOT go in

Secrets, large files (use context files instead), transient state, anything that changes per-session.

Skeleton (10 lines to start)

# [Project Name]
## Context
[2-3 sentences. What is this? Who uses it?]
## Conventions
- [Convention 1]
- [Convention 2]
## Glossary
- [Term]: [definition]
## Do
- [Pattern to use]
## Don't
- [Anti-pattern to avoid]
Try this prompt
Here's a 5-line draft of my CLAUDE.md. Review it. Suggest 3 additions that would make Claude more useful in this Project, and 1 thing I should remove. Be specific.

In your lane

Dev

CLAUDE.md for the api-refactor Project. Include: error-handling convention, the 3 most-used helper functions, the team's PR template.

Data

CLAUDE.md for the q3-dashboard Project. Include: data source map, metric definitions, refresh cadence.

Ops

CLAUDE.md for the runbook-update Project. Include: runbook template, escalation path, on-call rotation.

Ship it (30 min)

Write a CLAUDE.md for one Project. 10 lines. See the next response use it.