lesson 5 of 7 · claude basics
.md files and CLAUDE.md.
A .md file is plain text with a few marks for headings and lists. People read it as a document; Claude reads it as instructions.
new words
- Markdown
- The name of those marks. A Markdown file ends in
.md. - Import
- A line with
@and a file's path. It pulls that whole file in.
the lesson
| You type | It becomes |
|---|---|
# Website pages | a heading |
- Title under 60 characters | a list item |
**60 characters** | bold text |
[the brand rules](brand.md) | a link to another page |
@rules/writing.md | the whole of that file, pulled in |
CLAUDE.md is a Markdown file with that exact name. Claude reads it at the start of every session. Good instructions are short and exact. "Titles stay under 60 characters" works; "write good titles" does not.
Claude follows a CLAUDE.md, but the file cannot force Claude. A hard stop comes from permissions, the next lesson.
In instibrain, every page is a .md file, and the setup turns Claude's own memory off. So a lesson you learn goes onto a page, where the people you work with find it. instibrain basics shows which page.
try it
Type this and press Enter:
Show me ~/instibrain/CLAUDE.md, line by line.you should see
- Lines that start with
@. Each one imports another .md file: the first is instibrain itself, the next your own Personal layer. - Any other line is a note about this computer.