5 ms·

CC barely manages to follow all of the instructions within a single session in a single well-defined repo. 'You are totally right, it's been 2 whole messages s

CC barely manages to follow all of the instructions within a single session in a single well-defined repo. 'You are totally right, it's been 2 whole messages since the last reminder, and I totally forgot that first rule in claude.md, repeated twice and surrounded by a wall of exclamation marks'. Would be wary to trust its memories over several projects

ankit219 1y ago
create a instruction.md file with yaml like structure on top. put all the instructions you are giving repeatedly there. (eg: "a dev server is always running, just test your thing", "use uv", "never install anything outside of a venv") When you start a session, always emphasize this file as a holy bible to follow. Improves performance, and every few messages keep reminding. that yaml summary on top (see skills.md file for reference) is what these models are RLd on, so works better.
- joshmlewis 1y ago
  This should not really be necessary and is more of a workaround for bad patterns / prompting in my opinion.
  - ankit219 1y ago
    I agree it's a workaround. Ideally the model should follow instructions directly, or check before running another server to see if it's starting. Though training cannot cover every usecase and different devs work differently, so i guess its acceptable as long as its on track and can do the work.
joshmlewis 1y ago
How big is your claude.md file? I see people complain about this but I have only seen it happen in projects with very long/complex or insufficient claude.md files. I put a lot of time into crafting that file by hand for each project because it's not something it will generate well on its own with /init.
- tecoholic 1y ago
  Also I am confused by the “wall of exclamation marks”. Is that in the Claude.md file or the Claude Code output? Is that useful in Claude.md? Feels like it’s either going to confuse the LLM or probably just gets stripped.
- mudkipdev 1y ago
  I always just tag the relevant parts of the codebase manually with @ syntax and tell it create this, add unit tests, then format the code and make sure it compiles. There is nothing important enough in my opinion that I have felt the need to create an MD file
  - matthuggins 1y ago
    Where can I find docs about Claude @ syntax?
    - j_bum 1y ago
      I think the parent comment is simply referring to “@“-ing files in the chat. So if you want CC to edit “file.R”, the prompt might look like: “Fix the the function tagged with ‘TODO-bug’ in @file.R” That file is then prioritized for the agent to evaluate.
- whoisthemachine 1y ago
  What's the right size claude.md file in your experience?
  - typpilol 1y ago
    My experience is with copilot and it uses various models, but the sweet spot is between 60 and 120 lines. With psuedo xml tags between sections Might be different across platforms due to how stuff is setup though.
    - Sammi 1y ago
ToDougie 1y ago
Yep -- every message I send includes a requirement that CC read my non-negotiables, repeat them back to me, execute tasks, and then review output for compliance with my non-negotiables.

ankit219 1y ago

create a instruction.md file with yaml like structure on top. put all the instructions you are giving repeatedly there. (eg: "a dev server is always running, just test your thing", "use uv", "never install anything outside of a venv") When you start a session, always emphasize this file as a holy bible to follow. Improves performance, and every few messages keep reminding. that yaml summary on top (see skills.md file for reference) is what these models are RLd on, so works better.

joshmlewis 1y ago
This should not really be necessary and is more of a workaround for bad patterns / prompting in my opinion.
- ankit219 1y ago
  I agree it's a workaround. Ideally the model should follow instructions directly, or check before running another server to see if it's starting. Though training cannot cover every usecase and different devs work differently, so i guess its acceptable as long as its on track and can do the work.

joshmlewis 1y ago

How big is your claude.md file? I see people complain about this but I have only seen it happen in projects with very long/complex or insufficient claude.md files. I put a lot of time into crafting that file by hand for each project because it's not something it will generate well on its own with /init.

tecoholic 1y ago
Also I am confused by the “wall of exclamation marks”. Is that in the Claude.md file or the Claude Code output? Is that useful in Claude.md? Feels like it’s either going to confuse the LLM or probably just gets stripped.
mudkipdev 1y ago
I always just tag the relevant parts of the codebase manually with @ syntax and tell it create this, add unit tests, then format the code and make sure it compiles. There is nothing important enough in my opinion that I have felt the need to create an MD file
- matthuggins 1y ago
  Where can I find docs about Claude @ syntax?
  - j_bum 1y ago
    I think the parent comment is simply referring to “@“-ing files in the chat. So if you want CC to edit “file.R”, the prompt might look like: “Fix the the function tagged with ‘TODO-bug’ in @file.R” That file is then prioritized for the agent to evaluate.
whoisthemachine 1y ago
What's the right size claude.md file in your experience?
- typpilol 1y ago
  My experience is with copilot and it uses various models, but the sweet spot is between 60 and 120 lines. With psuedo xml tags between sections Might be different across platforms due to how stuff is setup though.
  - Sammi 1y ago

ToDougie 1y ago

Yep -- every message I send includes a requirement that CC read my non-negotiables, repeat them back to me, execute tasks, and then review output for compliance with my non-negotiables.