CLAUDE.md: set the trajectory

Build-along · ~10 min at your own keyboard

CLAUDE.md is read before message one. It's the heading you set leaving the dock. A one-degree error at departure lands you in the wrong county, and small instructions compound the same way across a long session. For a scientist, this file holds your system, your instruments, and the grounding rule you never break. Other coding tools read a similar file called AGENTS.md; same idea, different name.

Where these ideas come from: AGENTS.md (AI Hero dictionary). Paraphrased here.

Your starter: CLAUDE.md for bench work

Instructions

Make it yours: Replace every bracket with your own system and instruments, keep only the NEVER lines that are true in your lab, and cut it to the five bullets you would defend.

# CLAUDE.md

## WHO I AM
- [Role and lab in one line, e.g. second-year postdoc, cell imaging and plate assays]
- [System and instruments: cell line or organism, the reader or scope you export from]

## HOW I WORK
- Methods register: past tense, every parameter stated with its unit.
- n means [biological replicates / technical replicates]. Say which every time.
- Exports live in [folder]. Read them; never edit them in place.

## NEVER
- Never write a value that does not trace to an export or the run record. Write [NEEDS: value] instead.
- Never state a result inside a methods section.
- Never present a citation as checked unless I checked it. Mark it UNVERIFIED.
- Safety, hazard and disposal questions go to EHS. Do not answer them.

## CAN CHECK / CANNOT ASSESS
- Can check: a parameter against the run record, units, that every figure states its n.
- Cannot assess: whether the experiment worked or a result is real. Write CANNOT ASSESS and stop.

The coach checks that what you paste back is your own work. The starter pasted back unchanged won't pass.

Do this

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Share what happened

Paste your 5 CLAUDE.md bullets and one line on what the fresh session did differently.