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Comment by bcherny

2 days ago

Try to keep it under 1k tokens or so. We will show you a warning if it might be too big.

Ours is maybe half that size. We remove from it with every model release since smarter models need less hand-holding.

You can also break up your CLAUDE.md into smaller files, link CLAUDE.mds, or lazy load them only when Claude works in nested dirs.

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/memory

9 comments

bcherny

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bgilly  2 days ago

I’ve been fine tuning mine pretty often. Do you have any Claude.md files you can share as good examples? Especially with opus 4.5.

And thank you for your work!! I focus all of my energy on helping families stay safe online, I make educational content and educational products (including software). Claude Code has helped me amplify my efforts and I’m able to help many more families and children as a result. The downstream effects of your work on Claude Code are awesome! I’ve been in IT since 1995 and your tools are the most powerful tools I’ve ever used, by far.

blobbers  2 days ago

1k tokens, google says thats about 750 words. That's actually pretty short, any chance you could post a few samples of instructions or even link to a publicly available file CLAUDE.md you recommend?

  • SatvikBeri  1 day ago

    Mine is 24 lines long. It has a handful of stuff, but does refer to other MD files for more specifics when needed (like an early version of skills.)

    This is the meat of it:

      ## Code Style (See JULIA_STYLE.md for details)
  - Always use explicit `return` statements
  - Use Float32 for all numeric computations
  - Annotate function return types with `::`
  - All `using` statements go in Main.jl only
  - Use `error()` not empty returns on failure
  - Functions >20 lines need docstrings

  ## Do's and Don'ts
  -  Check for existing implementations first
  -  Prefer editing existing files
  -  Don't add comments unless requested
  -  Don't add imports outside Main.jl
  -  Don't create documentation unless requested

    Since Opus 4.0 this has been enough to get it to write code that generally follows our style, even in Julia, which is a fairly niche language.

  • dotancohen  2 days ago

    That is seriously short. I've asked Claude Code to add instructions to CLAUDE.md and my one line request has resulted in tens of lines added to the file.

    • hanska  2 days ago

      yes if you tell llm to do things it will be too verbose. either explicitly instruct the length ("add 5 lines bulletpoints, tldr format") or just write it yourself.

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