jbarbier/CLAUDE.md
183 stars · Last commit 2026-06-05
One CLAUDE.md to make your coding agent ship like a senior engineer. Drop-in for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini.
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# CLAUDE.md — a working contract for coding agents This repo is a single file: [`CLAUDE.md`](./CLAUDE.md). It is the instruction set I give Claude Code (and any other coding agent) at the start of every session. It tells the agent how to think, when to write code instead of guessing, what "done" means, and how to talk to me. It is opinionated on purpose. Most of the ideas come from [Andrej Karpathy](https://x.com/karpathy) and [Garry Tan](https://x.com/garrytan). Some are mine. You are meant to copy this, put your own name in it, delete what does not fit your stack, and make it better. Instructions for all three are below. --- ## What this actually does A coding agent with no instructions defaults to the average of everything it has ever seen. That average is mediocre: it stops early, skips tests, invents libraries, and asks permission for things it should just do. `CLAUDE.md` is loaded into the model's context at the start of every session, so it acts as a standing contract that overrides that default. The agent reads it before it reads your request. Think of it as the difference between hiring a contractor with no brief and hiring one with a one-page spec taped to the wall. Same contractor. Very different output. --- ## Install it (3 minutes)