Give Claude your bench once
Lesson 1 of 3 · Claude & Cowork mastery
1 · Learn the move · Context + audience
Stop re-typing who you are every session. Write your system, your instruments and your grounding rules once as a Claude Project's instructions, and every conversation inside that Project starts already knowing them. The move is context + audience: name the situation (a bench scientist in one specific system) and who the instructions serve - you, on every task - so it stops guessing.
These are the standing instructions for my Claude Project. I am a [field] scientist working on [system], on [instruments]. My voice: plain, direct, no overstatement. Grounding rule: never a number that cannot be traced to what I paste, and anything unchecked comes back UNVERIFIED. When I paste a task, apply all of this without me repeating it.
2 · Your turn. You write the prompt
You open a fresh session five times a day and retype the same setup - your system, your instruments, your grounding rules - before you can ask for anything. Write the Project instructions that carry all of it so you never paste that preamble again.
Write the prompt for this scenario as given, or swap in a real one from your own work. The score works the same either way.
Remember: the AI sees only your prompt, not this page. If the situation isn't in your prompt, it doesn't exist.
Optional. These shape the output when you run your prompt below, not your score.