"How do you structure your CLAUDE·md?"

I don't. I guide Claude to build it as I work.

Most people start by setting up complex folder structures before their first real conversation with Claude.

Style guides. Voice files. Templates. All perfect, written in advance.

Most of them sit empty a week later.

Here's what actually works for me:

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𝟭. 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁.

Open your project. Start talking. No folders. No setup.

As you go, tell Claude: "save this to a .md file."

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𝟮. 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗼.

Tell Claude what to save and where.

• "Save our competitive analysis to docs/strategy/"

• "Document the pricing decision and tradeoffs in docs/decisions/"

• "Extract my feedback patterns into docs/reviews/"

You steer. Claude writes.

You don't even need to decide where things go. One prompt:

"Review our docs/ folder. Suggest how to reorganize it. And going forward — save new knowledge to the right file and update CLAUDE·md."

Claude comes back:

"I'd merge voice·md and tone·md into one writing-guide·md, move the pricing docs into decisions/, and archive the outdated Q1 notes."

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𝟯. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘀.

After a week, you have real files born from real work.

• "CLAUDE·md is getting long — reorganize it, keep it < 200 lines."

• "Review our docs/ folder. Anything outdated?"

• "Add the new docs we created this week. Anything to drop?"

One prompt. Claude reorganizes and maintains your knowledge base.

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You wouldn't write a PRD before talking to users.

Don't write instructions before working with Claude.

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By the way, this infographic was built by my new designer — Claude.

What it can do surprises me daily. I wrote two guides to help you start:

• Cowork: productcompass.pm/p/cla…

• Claude Code (no coding required): productcompass.pm/p/cla…