Claude Code Without Coding · Section 7 · Starter
CLAUDE.md Starter Rules
These are the rules you write into a CLAUDE.md in Section 7, so Claude Code remembers them every session.
Arun Nagarathanam · 5 Oct 2026 Template · 53 of 72 in this course 
Starter
How to use these rules
An exclusive resource for students of Arun's Claude Code Course.
These are the rules you write into a CLAUDE.md in Section 7. Give them to Claude Code as the content of the file and let Claude write it, rather than typing the file yourself.
Follow along
- Ask Claude to create a
CLAUDE.mdfile and paste the rules in as the content. - Check the path before you allow anything. It should be
.claude/CLAUDE.md. - Run the same request again in a fresh session. Do not remind Claude of anything.
- Type
/contextto see your file on the list and what it costs.
The question that decides every line is: if I delete this line, will Claude Code get something wrong?
Section 7
The two cost rules
Never rewrite a whole file when changing a few lines would do the job. Never tell me a job is finished until you have run the site and seen it still works.
Section 7
Two rules you can see in every answer
Files and links
Use one of these at a time, not both, because they ask for different shapes of answer. Each is a rule whose result shows in the answer itself, so you can tell at a glance whether Claude Code read your file.
When you finish a change, tell me in one plain sentence what you changed. Never use a bulleted list.
Every time you reply to me, give me a table with 3 columns: what is done, what is next, and what you need from me.
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This resource is one piece of a much bigger system.
Take the free Claude Code Readiness Quiz. It is 15 short situations, scored out of 100, and it tests how you handle a job rather than what you know about a tool, so you can take it without ever having opened Claude Code.
Take the Claude Code Readiness Quiz 15 situations · Scored out of 100 · Free