Teach It Your Project

It forgets everything. Write it down.

Every new session, Claude starts from nothing. It doesn't remember yesterday's decision that the data stays inside the page. CLAUDE.md is how you fix that: a plain text file in your folder that Claude reads at the start of every session. Think of it as the briefing you'd give a new hire on their first morning. No training, no setup. You edit a text file and it follows it.

Gabe

I run my company, Nexrizen, on this. The slowest part was writing down decisions we had only made out loud: pricing rules, where files go, what a finished deliverable looks like. Once those lived in files Claude reads, new teammates got useful faster, and so did every new model.

The Context Window Is a Notepad That Fills Up

Claude’s working memory for a session is called the context window. Picture a notepad: everything you say, every file it reads and everything it does takes up space. When the pad gets full, older details get summarized and the work gets sloppier. Long sessions feel like a colleague at the end of a double shift. So keep to one task per session, and start a new session when the task changes. You won’t lose anything that matters, because the things that matter are now in files.

Build it

1. Create the briefing

   Start a new session on your folder. Claude has a built-in command for this, /init, which writes a starter file from what it finds in the folder. You can try it, but this prompt gets you closer to a briefing a non-engineer can read and edit.
   Paste this into Claude Copy

   Create a CLAUDE.md for this project. Write it as a briefing for a new hire who isn't an engineer: what this is, who reads it, the rules about the data, how to open it, and what never to do. Keep it under 30 lines and use plain English.

2. Edit it in plain English

   Open CLAUDE.md and read it. It’s only text. Tick off each item below as you confirm it’s in there, and watch the disk. If something’s missing or wrong, tell Claude what to change, or edit the file yourself in any text editor.
   Stuck?

   It wrote a lot of technical detail I don't understand.

   Say: “Rewrite anything a non-engineer wouldn’t follow. Keep the rules, cut the rest.” Shorter is better, because Claude reads the whole thing every session.

3. Prove it worked

   Start another new session, so Claude has no memory of this one. Then ask the question below. If it answers correctly, your briefing works. If you ever catch Claude making the same mistake twice, that’s a missing line in this file.
   Paste this into Claude Copy

   What are the rules of this project, and what should you never do here? Answer in three sentences, and tell me where you learned it.

   Stuck?

   It doesn't mention the rules.

   Check the file is called exactly CLAUDE.md and sits in the my-dashboard folder, not a folder inside it.

   I want to see how full the notepad is.

   Type /context to see what’s using the space. /compact summarizes the session so far and frees some up, but a new session is usually the better move.

# Pipeline dashboard

## What this is
A one-page dashboard from a sales spreadsheet. I read it on
Monday morning to decide which deals to chase this week.

## How to open it
Double-click index.html. There is no server and nothing to install.

## Rules about the data
- The data in this folder is fake. Never add real customer data here.
- The data stays inside the page. No outside services.

## How to work with me
- I'm not an engineer. Explain changes in plain English.
- Tell me what you changed and how I can check it myself.
- If you assumed something, say so.

## Never
- Never install anything without asking me first.
- Never add logins, payments or anything that collects personal data.
- Never delete or weaken a check to make it pass.