claude-rules

Global development rules for Claude Code. These rules enforce disciplined, traceable, and reliable AI-assisted development across all projects.

Install

Linux / macOS:

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/claude-rules.git ~/repos/claude-rules
cd ~/repos/claude-rules
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

Windows (PowerShell):

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/claude-rules.git $env:USERPROFILE\repos\claude-rules
cd $env:USERPROFILE\repos\claude-rules
.\install.ps1

What It Does

Installs a global CLAUDE.md to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md that applies to every Claude Code session on this machine. It enforces 10 hard rules:

1. Query, Never Assume - Verify external system behavior with tools before writing code
2. Persist Every Solution - Document every solved problem in docs/known-issues.md
3. Trace Every Operation - Structured logging with pipeline tracing
4. Verify After State Changes - Read back after write, confirm after deploy
5. Degrade Gracefully - Graduated responses, no binary kill switches
6. Source of Truth Hierarchy - Define and respect authoritative data sources
7. Plan Before Code - Write a plan for tasks >30 minutes
8. Test the Boundary - Integration tests over mocks, behavior over implementation
9. One Change, One Commit - Clean git history with clear messages
10. Respect the User's Time - Be direct, don't pad, don't repeat

Project Templates

Copy these to new projects:

• templates/known-issues.md → docs/known-issues.md in your project
• templates/project-claude.md → CLAUDE.md in your project root (customize per project)

How It Works

Claude Code reads ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md at the start of every session. These instructions are treated as hard rules that override default behavior. Project-level CLAUDE.md files supplement (don't replace) the global rules.

Updating

cd ~/repos/claude-rules
git pull

The symlink means changes take effect immediately on Linux/macOS. On Windows, re-run install.ps1 after pulling.