Try to keep it under 1k tokens or so. We will show you a warning if it might be too big.

Ours is maybe half that size. We remove from it with every model release since smarter models need less hand-holding.

You can also break up your CLAUDE.md into smaller files, link CLAUDE.mds, or lazy load them only when Claude works in nested dirs.

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/memory

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bgilly 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’ve been fine tuning mine pretty often. Do you have any Claude.md files you can share as good examples? Especially with opus 4.5.

And thank you for your work!! I focus all of my energy on helping families stay safe online, I make educational content and educational products (including software). Claude Code has helped me amplify my efforts and I’m able to help many more families and children as a result. The downstream effects of your work on Claude Code are awesome! I’ve been in IT since 1995 and your tools are the most powerful tools I’ve ever used, by far.

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blobbers 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

1k tokens, google says thats about 750 words. That's actually pretty short, any chance you could post a few samples of instructions or even link to a publicly available file CLAUDE.md you recommend?

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dotancohen 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That is seriously short. I've asked Claude Code to add instructions to CLAUDE.md and my one line request has resulted in tens of lines added to the file.

	▲	hanska 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		yes if you tell llm to do things it will be too verbose. either explicitly instruct the length ("add 5 lines bulletpoints, tldr format") or just write it yourself.

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songodongo 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

crickets

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tomviner 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

How do you know what to remove?