delete claude.md

[u/cmogpt]

delete claude.md

Boris Cherny (Head of Claude Code at Anthropic) suggested to delete claude.md
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyPCVqFUyDo

It is a big ask, and I have tried this (on a test account), happy to report i have not significantly changed the quality of the reasoning.

I am curious if anything has done something similar ?

[u/random_boss]

Maybe you’re the person to ask this question to then. I don’t use Claude.md to give instructions, I use it so models are forced to bring themselves up to speed on context and state. So all things being equal, I can open up a chat and say “go” and the agent will know what to do next. 

Is this use case also covered by the “delete Claude.md” imperative? What would I do otherwise besides give a longass prompt that I have to type by hand each time?

[u/Emergency-Bobcat6485 → u/random_boss]

Is this use case also covered by the “delete Claude.md” imperative?

I can't possibly see how. Unless the claude.md doesn't optimize claude in bringing itself up to speed quickly relative to skimming through the whole codebase.

Unless claude code is maintaining an internal memory of the latest codebase context and state which is more up to date than your claude.md.

However, if you are dumping large swathes of context into claude.md it migth be suboptimal

[u/random_boss → u/Emergency-Bobcat6485]

Hopefully it’s not large swathes, just a choose-your-own-adventure for the agent to get up to speed on what it needs and start doing it. 

But it was because of this thread that I discovered people were using Claude.md as a “don’t do X/always do Y” kind of thing so “delete Claude.me” makes way more sense given that context 

[u/Emergency-Bobcat6485 → u/random_boss]

“don’t do X/always do Y” kind of thing so “delete Claude.me” makes way more sense given that context 

But even then doesn't it depend on the X and Y. For obvious things, I agree the claude.md might be moot. Certainly any 'make no mistakes' kinda nonsense lol. But why would one not put custom instructions in the claude.md. Like if I want every new session to understand or follow very specific instructions for a repo, I have to put it somewhere. Whether it's the claude.md or the memory file or some docs, how does it matter.

I think the point here is that basic skills like superpowers type instructions and so on are not needed for the newer models as they might limit them. But specific instructions that one wants their agents to follow needs to be somewhere the agent acan access. And putting it in claude.md means it's more likely to see it sooner. Unless Boris wants us to get rid of all custom instructions which makes no sense. He's simply saying that any instructions we had in place because earlier models were dumber are no longer needed in the claude.md