CLAUDE.md & memory

Drop a file called CLAUDE.md in your project and Claude reads it at the start of every chat — your stack, your conventions, the commands to run. Separately, Claude keeps its own private memory of things it learns about how you work. One you write and share; the other it keeps and reuses.

There are two layers here, and it’s worth keeping them straight. CLAUDE.md is a file you write and drop in your project. Claude reads it at the start of every conversation, so it’s the place for the standing facts of the project: the stack, the conventions, which commands to run, what never to touch. Because it’s committed to the repo, everyone on the team shares the same context — and /init will draft a first version for you by reading the codebase.

Memory is the other half: notes Claude keeps for itself about how you work, built up quietly over time. You write and share the first; it keeps and reuses the second. Together they mean the context you’d otherwise re-explain every session is just there from the first message.

The one discipline that matters: keep CLAUDE.md short and specific. It’s read on every single conversation, so anything vague or bloated is a cost you pay over and over. Put genuine project facts in it, let memory hold your personal habits — and the moment you catch yourself correcting the same thing twice, write it down so you never have to a third time.

# CLAUDE.md

This file gives Claude Code guidance for working in this repository.

## Project

This project

## Guidelines

- Do not create a new branch unless I explicitly ask — work on the current branch by default.
- Run the test suite and make it pass before considering a task complete.

# CLAUDE.md

This is a Next.js app. Run `npm test` before every commit.
Prefer plain CSS over Tailwind. Never edit files in /vendor.

/init