Every session starts the same way. You explain where things are kept, how this project runs, and the one thing it always gets wrong. Then tomorrow you explain it again.
That is ten or fifteen minutes a day of re briefing, and it never compounds. Worse, the days you are in a hurry you skip the briefing, and you get work built on a guess. The mistake you correct every week is a mistake nobody ever wrote down.
Thirty minutes and you will have a file sitting in your work folder that gets read before you type a word, short enough that it actually gets followed, plus a way to turn every repeat mistake into one line.
This is for anyone whose work lives in a folder and who is tired of explaining that folder. It is a step up from the basics, but it is one text file and nothing else.
The proof behind this
Liz Elliott is not an engineer and never studied computer science. She still runs her whole operation on AI automations spread across several computers. A file like this is what stands between an AI that knows your setup and one that keeps guessing.
What this lesson is
Lesson 5.2 of the free AI for Entrepreneurs course, in Module 5: Memory And Context.
A file named CLAUDE.md sits in the folder where your work lives, and it gets read at the start of every session before you type a word. Picture the first day of a new person on your team. You do not hand them a 400 page manual. You hand them one page. What this work is. Where things are kept. The few steps that matter. How you like things done. Which mistakes people always make here. Then you point them at the deeper documents if they need more. Two things go wrong with it. Most people leave it empty and re explain the same setup daily. A smaller group writes a giant manual, which backfires, because the file loads into every session and the rules that matter get buried. The good version is short and specific, and you do not have to write it perfectly today.
New here? Use the free AI for Entrepreneurs course outline to read this series in the best order.
Behind the paywall
Getting a first draft without staring at a blank page, and why you must treat it as a draft
The map, so the file works like a table of contents instead of a library
The four sections, with full examples you can copy
The 200 line rule, and what to cut when you cross it
How to add a rule every time it gets something wrong, in one line
Splitting the shared file from your private one
The two week ritual and the 30 second test, plus the nine mistakes and the checklist
What paid subscribers get overall
Paid subscribers get every part of AI for Entrepreneurs in full. Every numbered step, every prompt in a block you can copy, the mistakes list, and the checklist at the end. You also get the rest of the run as it goes out, and the whole paid archive on Liz on the Web.
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The free half above is the concept, and it stands on its own. The locked half is the work, and it stays in your archive for as long as you are subscribed.
Click the button, subscribe, and the locked section below opens right away. You get this article now, and every other part in the series.
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The full walkthrough is below the paywall.
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