Looking for a similar GEMINI.md
Writing a good Claude.md
31–40 of 304 posts
Re: Writing a good Claude.md
#32I’m sure I’m just working like a caveman, but I simply highlight the relevant code, add it to the chat, and talk to these tools as if they were my colleagues and I’m getting pretty good results. About 12 to 6 months ago this was not the case (with or without .md files), I was getting mainly subpar result, so I’m assuming that the models have improved a lot. Basically, I found that they not make that much of a differe…
Matches my experience also. Bothered only once to setup a proper CLAUDE.md file, and now never do it. Simply refering to the context properly for surgical recommendations and edit works relatively well.
It feels a lot like bikeshedding to me, maybe I’m wrong
Re: Writing a good Claude.md
#33Probably a lot of people here disagree with this feeling. But my take is that if setting up all the AI infrastructure and onboarding to my code is going to take this amount of effort, then I might as well code the damn thing myself which is what I'm getting paid to (and enjoy doing anyway)
Whether it's setting up AI infrastructure or configuring Emacs/vim/VSCode, the important distinction to make is if the cost has to be paid continually, or if it's a one time/intermittent cost. If I had to configure my shell/git aliases every time I booted my computer, I wouldn't use them, but seeing as how they're saved in config files, they're pretty heavily customized by this point.
Don't use AI if you don't want to, but "it takes too much effort to set up" is an excuse printf debuggers use to avoid setting up a debugger. Which is a whole other debate though.
Re: Writing a good Claude.md
#34There is far much easier way to do this and one that is perfectly aligned with how these tools work. It is called documenting your code! Just write what this file is supposed to do in a clear concise way. It acts as a prompt, it provides much needed context specific to the file and it is used only when necessary. Another tip is to add README.md files where possible and where it helps. What is this folder for? Nobody…
This is missing the point. If I want to instruct Claude to never write a database query that doesn't hit a preexisting index, where exactly am I supposed to document that? You can either choose: 1. A centralized location, like a README (congrats, you've just invented CLAUDE.md) 2. You add a docs folder (congrats, you've just done exactly what the author suggests under Progressive Disclosure) Moreover, you can't just…
You put a warning where it is most likely to be seen by a human coder.
Besides, no amount of prompting will prevent this situation.
If it is a concern then you put a linter or unit tests to prevent it altogether, or make a wrapper around the tricky function with some warning in its doc strings.
I don't see how this is any different from how you typically approach making your code more resilient to accidental mistakes.
Re: Writing a good Claude.md
#35There is far much easier way to do this and one that is perfectly aligned with how these tools work. It is called documenting your code! Just write what this file is supposed to do in a clear concise way. It acts as a prompt, it provides much needed context specific to the file and it is used only when necessary. Another tip is to add README.md files where possible and where it helps. What is this folder for? Nobody…
I think you’re missing that CLAUDE.md is deterministically injected into the model’s context window
This means that instead of behaving like a file the LLM reads, it effectively lets you customize the model’s prompt
I also didn’t write that you have to “prompt it just the right way”, I think you’re missing the point entirely
Re: Writing a good Claude.md
#36I’m sure I’m just working like a caveman, but I simply highlight the relevant code, add it to the chat, and talk to these tools as if they were my colleagues and I’m getting pretty good results. About 12 to 6 months ago this was not the case (with or without .md files), I was getting mainly subpar result, so I’m assuming that the models have improved a lot. Basically, I found that they not make that much of a differe…
> I simply highlight the relevant code, add it to the chat, and talk to these tools Different use case. I assume the discussion is about having the agent implement whole features or research and fix bugs without much guidance.
Yep it is opinionated for how to get coding agents to solve hard problems in complex brownfield codebases which is what we are focused on at humanlayer :)
Re: Writing a good Claude.md
#37Looking for a similar GEMINI.md
It might support AGENTS.md, you could check the site and see if it’s there
Re: Writing a good Claude.md
#38I was expecting the traditional AI-written slop about AI, but this is actually really good. In particular, the "As instruction count increases, instruction-following quality decreases uniformly" section and associated graph is truly fantastic! To my mind, the ability to follow long lists of rules is one of the most obvious ways that virtually all AI models fail today. That's why I think that graph is so useful -- I'v…
I looked when I wrote the post but the paper hasn’t been revisited with newer models :/
Re: Writing a good Claude.md
#39I’m sure I’m just working like a caveman, but I simply highlight the relevant code, add it to the chat, and talk to these tools as if they were my colleagues and I’m getting pretty good results. About 12 to 6 months ago this was not the case (with or without .md files), I was getting mainly subpar result, so I’m assuming that the models have improved a lot. Basically, I found that they not make that much of a differe…
How about a list of existing database tables/columns so you don't need to repeat it each time?
Re: Writing a good Claude.md
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is missing the point. If I want to instruct Claude to never write a database query that doesn't hit a preexisting index, where exactly am I supposed to document that? You can either choose: 1. A centralized location, like a README (congrats, you've just invented CLAUDE.md) 2. You add a docs folder (congrats, you've just done exactly what the author suggests under Progressive Disclosure) Moreover, you can't just…
You put a warning where it is most likely to be seen by a human coder. Besides, no amount of prompting will prevent this situation. If it is a concern then you put a linter or unit tests to prevent it altogether, or make a wrapper around the tricky function with some warning in its doc strings. I don't see how this is any different from how you typically approach making your code more resilient to accidental mistakes…
Documenting for AI exactly like you would document for a human is ignoring how these tools work