configuring-claude
Configuring Claude
Core principle: The context window is a shared resource. Every token in your skill or rule competes with conversation history, other skills, and the user's actual request. Write the minimum instructions needed to change Claude's behavior from its defaults.
Topic Selection
Load the relevant reference based on what you're configuring:
| Configuring... | Load | File |
|---|---|---|
| Skills (SKILL.md files, plugin skills) | Skills | references/skills.md |
| Rules, CLAUDE.md, memory | Rules & Memory | references/rules-and-memory.md |
Load both when creating a plugin that includes skills alongside project-level rules.
Universal Principles
More from rileyhilliard/claude-essentials
design
Enforces precise, minimal design for dashboards and admin interfaces. Use when building SaaS UIs, data-heavy interfaces, or any product needing Jony Ive-level craft.
18writer
Writing style and tone guide for human-sounding content. Use when writing documentation, READMEs, commit messages, PR descriptions, blog posts, or any user-facing content.
17strategy-writer
Produces executive-quality strategic documents in The Economist/HBR style. Use when writing strategy memos, market analysis, business cases, customer research reports, or any document for Product, Design, and Business leaders. Customer-led, evidence-based, narrative-driven.
13systematic-debugging
Debugging framework that finds root causes before proposing fixes. Use when investigating bugs, errors, unexpected behavior, failed tests, or when previous fixes haven't worked.
13executing-plans
Executes implementation plans with smart task grouping. Groups related tasks to share context, parallelizes across independent subsystems.
12refactoring-code
Improves code structure while preserving behavior through test verification. Use when cleaning up code, reducing duplication, simplifying complexity, or reorganizing modules.
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