I can confirm this is effective - I have done the same.

I haven't done extensive experiments, but I have noticed anecdotal benefits to asking the LLM how they want things structured as well.

For example, for complex multi-stage tasks I asked Claude Code how best to communicate the objective and it recommended a markdown file with the following sections: "High-level goal", "User stories", "Technical requirements", "Non-goals". I then created such a doc for a pretty complex task then asked Claude to review the doc and ask any clarifications. I then answer any questions (usually 5-7) and put them into a "Clarification" section. I have also added a "Completion checklist" section that I use to ensure that Claude follows all of the rules in my subdirectory "README.md" files (I have one for each major sub-section of code, like my service layer, my router layer, my database, etc). I usually go and do 2-3 rounds of Claude asking questions and me adding to the "Clarification" section and then Claude is satisfied and ready to implement.

The bonus of this approach is I now have a growing list of the task specifications checked into a "tasks" directory showing the history of how the code base came to be.

This sounds a lot like how Kiro works. Your requirements and design are in a .kiro directory inside the project, allowing you to commit them. The process is structured within Kiro to walk you through generating docs for each phase before beginning to write code. Ultimately, it generates a list of tasks, and you can run them one at a time and review/update between each.

My use case is a little different (mostly prototyping and building design ops tools) but +1 to this flow.

At this point, I typically do an LLM-readme at the branch level to document both planning and progress. At the project level I've started having it dump (and organize) everything in a work-focused Obsidian vault. This way I end up with cross-project resources in one place, it doesn't bloat my repos, and it can be used by other agents from where it is.

oh damn interesting