Have you ever encountered this before?
You sit down to code, ask your AI for help, and then spend half your time re-explaining the same project details you explained yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that.
It’s like Groundhog Day for developers, and it’s killing your flow.
I’ve been there.
I’d start a coding session with Claude Code and find myself typing out my coding style, project structure, and “don’t do this” warnings to the Claude again. By Wednesday, I’m thinking: Didn’t I already tell it this on Monday? Why am I repeating myself to a machine that’s supposed to make me more efficient?
Something had to change.
Don’t Repeat Yourself – we preach the DRY principle in our code, so why weren’t we applying it here? Why were we treating each new AI session like Day One on the job?
It was time to practice what we preach and stop the madness of constant repetition.
Stuck on Repeat
Let’s face it: without guidance, your AI has the memory of a goldfish.
Context from yesterday? Gone. Unless you feed the same info again, your AI starts fresh each time. The result: you, the developer, stuck on repeat – reiterating coding standards, re-linking the same docs, reminding the AI (and yourself) of decisions you made last week.
It’s exhausting.
This isn’t just your problem.
Plenty of devs hit this wall. It’s such a common pain point that tools have popped up promising to fix “AI amnesia.” (One even brags: “Never Repeat Yourself Again”, designed to make Claude remember key facts so you don’t have to.)
Clearly, we’re all tired of the déjà vu.
Besides being annoying, repeating yourself is a productivity killer.
It yanks you out of “the zone” and into babysitting mode. Imagine having to onboard a new developer every single morning – introducing the codebase, explaining the style guide, pointing out known bugs. You’d never get real work done! Yet that’s exactly how many of us have been handling our AI assistants.
We’ve been treating them like goldfish instead of team members.
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Onboard Your AI Like a New Developer
What if, instead, you treated your AI assistant like a new hire on your team?
Think about it: when a junior developer joins, you don’t repeat everything to them ad infinitum. You give them documentation. You share the team wiki, the coding conventions, the README, the tribal knowledge written down in one place.
In short, you onboard them.
Your AI assistant deserves the same.
Stop expecting it to magically know your project’s details or remember yesterday’s chat. Instead, give it a proper orientation. Hand it a guide and say, “Here, read this first.” This way, whether it’s day one or day one hundred of the project, your AI has a baseline understanding of how your world works.
That’s where CLAUDE.md comes in – your AI’s very own guidebook.
CLAUDE.md is essentially an onboarding manual for your AI, living right there in your codebase. It’s the cheat sheet that ensures you only have to explain things once. Just like you wouldn’t hire a developer without giving them access to documentation, you shouldn’t be chatting with an AI about your code without a guide in place.
Onboarding isn’t just for humans anymore – your AI will thank you for it (in its own way).
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Meet CLAUDE.md: Your Claude Code’s Guidebook
CLAUDE.md is a simple idea with powerful impact.
It’s a markdown file that sits in your project repository and contains everything you want your AI to knowabout the project upfront. Instead of repeating yourself in conversation, you document it once in CLAUDE.md and let Claude Code refer to it whenever needed.
Think of it as the AI’s employee handbook.
What goes in this handbook?
Whatever you find yourself repeating or any project-specific insights the AI would benefit from. This file can include your build and run commands, coding style rules, project conventions, key architectural decisions, and even a glossary of domain-specific terms.
In short, it’s the context that you used to type out over and over – now persistently saved in one place.
Here’s the beauty: once CLAUDE.md is in place, you can load it or have the Claude Code load it at the start of your session.
Suddenly, the Claude stops asking the things it should already know. It stops suggesting solutions you’ve ruled out weeks ago. It writes code that fits your style guide without being told every time. In other words, the AI starts acting like a team member who’s been around for a while, not a clueless newbie.
And if you’re worried this is some fringe idea, don’t be.
Even Anthropic (Claude’s creators) emphasizes using a CLAUDE.md file to store important project info and conventions.
It’s an official best practice: include your frequent commands, your code style preferences, your project’s unique patterns – all of it in CLAUDE.md. Think of all those “BTW, our database is PostgreSQL” or “We use 4 spaces, not tabs” reminders you’ve given the AI. All of them go into the guide. That’s why Claude Code has a one-shot command to bootstrap this file for you (/init) – because the Claude team knows how crucial it is to have this documentation.
Bottom line: CLAUDE.md turns Claude Code from a forgetful sidekick into a context-aware partner.
It’s the single source of truth that lives alongside your code, ready to bring the AI up to speed anytime. So let’s get practical: how do you create this game-changing guide?
Build Your CLAUDE.md (Step by Step)
Creating a CLAUDE.md guide for your project is straightforward and absolutely worth the few minutes it takes.
Let’s break it down:
1. Create the File:
In your project’s root directory, create a new file called CLAUDE.md.
This is going to be Claude Code’s reference manual. Treat it with the same respect you would a README or any important doc – because it is important.
2. Explain the Project:
Start with a brief overview of what the project is.
What is the goal of this software? What domain or context does it operate in? Give your Claude Code the 10,000-foot view so it understands the big picture. (Even a sentence or two is fine – just enough to set the context.)
3. List Key Commands and Workflows:
Document the common commands to run, build, test, or deploy the project. If you always run npm run build or make deploy or pytest for tests, put that in. Include any setup steps or environment quirks.
This way the AI won’t waste time (or tokens) guessing how to execute tasks – it’s all laid out.
4. Lay Out Coding Conventions:
Write down your coding style guidelines and naming conventions.
Indentation rules, brace styles, file naming patterns, preferred frameworks or libraries – anything that defines your project’s “style.” For example, if you only use ES Modules (import/export) and never CommonJS, state that clearly. If functions should have descriptive docstrings, mention it.
All those little rules you follow should live here, in one clear list.
5. Note Project-Specific Quirks:
Every project has its quirks and “gotchas.”
Maybe certain libraries are off-limits, or there’s a workaround that everyone needs to know. Maybe “we prefer composition over inheritance in this codebase” or “avoid using global state, use our AppContext instead.” Include those! This section is pure gold for an AI assistant – it keeps it from walking into the same walls you did.
(It also saves you from hearing suggestions that make you roll your eyes because “we tried that last year and it failed.”)
6. Add Architectural Overview:
If your project has an architecture diagram or a key design pattern, summarize it.
Something like “This is a client-server app with a React frontend and Node backend” or “We use MVC pattern with these directories.” You don’t need to write a novel – just bullet out the main components and how they interact.
Give the AI a map of the terrain.
7. Keep It Updated:
This part is crucial.
Your CLAUDE.md should be a living document. When things change – and they will change – update the guide. Did you refactor out an old module? Note it. Swapped a library? Put that info in.
I personally experienced this frustration when Claude kept suggesting an outdated logging library. After some investigation, I realized the old recommendation was still sitting in my CLAUDE.md file. Once I updated it, Claude’s suggestions instantly aligned with the new approach.
Context is only useful if it’s current, so make it a habit: whenever you make a significant change, spend 30 seconds to tweak the CLAUDE.md.
(Pro tip: you can even have Claude itself update the file when you tell it what changed – “Update CLAUDE.md to note that we now use Library X for logging,” and voila, it edits the file.)
8. Load It Up:
Finally, put it to work.
By default, Claude Code will automatically load the CLAUDE.md file whenever a new conversation is started, giving it immediate context about your project. However, you can also specifically ask Claude to read the file first before doing anything else if you’ve made recent updates to it.
Example:
First, read the CLAUDE.md file to understand the current context of the project.
Then, {your instructions here}This ensures the AI always has the most current understanding of your project’s requirements and conventions.
It’s like handing your new team member the manual on day one – essential for getting quality work out the gate.
(By the way, you can use the /init command to generate a starter CLAUDE.md for you automatically. It scans your repo for context and creates a first draft. This can save time, but you’ll still want to edit that draft to add any project-specific wisdom that the AI might miss.)
With these steps, you’ve effectively transferred a ton of knowledge from your brain (and your wiki and your scattered notes) into a format your AI can use in milliseconds. You’ve created a safety net that catches the “forgotten” details.
Now the next time you ask Claude Code to help with a piece of code, you won’t get back, “What database are we using again?” or suggestions that ignore your team’s style.
Instead, you’ll get results that respect the groundwork you’ve laid.
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Stop Repeating, Start Building
Level up your AI coding experience with a CLAUDE.md guide.
Free yourself from repetitive explanations and get back to building. With Claude Code properly onboarded, it understands your preferences and constraints without constant reminders. Next time you start coding, Claude Code will greet you like a well-informed teammate, starting from knowledge instead of from zero.
That’s a game-changer.
So go create your CLAUDE.md file right now.
It doesn’t need to be perfect – just commit the basics and improve it over time. You’ll immediately notice the difference in your next session. This small investment today will pay dividends with every future interaction – replacing broken-record conversations with efficient, informed collaboration.
Now build something amazing with an assistant that’s finally up to speed.
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