The 200–500 line rule

Build-along · ~8 min at your own keyboard

Every CLAUDE.md line gets injected into every conversation. A 10K-token file taxes each session before you type. Keep it 200-500 lines, put the hardest guardrails at the very top (models remember beginnings and endings, not middles), and prune it like a stale pipeline.

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Share what happened

Paste your before/after line counts, the 3 rules you promoted to the top, and the /context delta.