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 land buyer, this file holds your counties, your buy box, your outreach rules, and the line it never crosses: it does not tell you what a tract is worth. 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 a land buyer

Instructions

Make it yours: Write your counties, parcel types and the records you pull into the brackets, keep only the never-lines you would defend to a title examiner, and cut it to what fits above the fold.

# CLAUDE.md

## WHO I AM
- [What you buy and where, e.g. rural acreage and tax-delinquent parcels in two counties]
- [The two records you pull on every parcel: e.g. the assessor card and the last deed]

## HOW I WORK A PARCEL
- Record first, then the number. No value, acreage or owner that does not come from a pulled record with a date.
- Owner names are written exactly as the record spells them, with the instrument and book/page.
- A chain of title is a list of instruments in order, not a story.

## NEVER
- Never fill in an owner, a legal description, an acreage or a tax amount. Write [PULL THE RECORD: item].
- Never say a title is clear, an heir is the only heir, or a parcel has access.
- Never contact an owner, a county office or a title company. I do.

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

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Share what happened

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