lesson 4 of 7 · claude basics

Where you start Claude, and what it loads.

Claude reads its instructions from the folder where you start it. Start in the right folder, and the right instructions load.

new words

Folder: A place for files on your computer. ~ means your home folder.
CLAUDE.md: A file of instructions Claude reads at the start of every session.

the lesson

At the start, Claude loads the CLAUDE.md in the folder you start in, and the one in every folder above it. It also loads ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md, your own file. The instibrain button loads ~/.instibrain/claude/CLAUDE.md in its place.

Start Claude from the instibrain button. It opens Claude in ~/instibrain. There, instibrain, your spaces and your specialists load.

Claude started inside a folder of code reads that code's own CLAUDE.md, and none of your spaces. For work that needs both, start from the button and name the code's folder in your task.

from the instibrain button

~/.instibrain/claude/CLAUDE.mdinstibrain's own file, in place of yours

~/instibrain/CLAUDE.mdinstibrain, then your own Personal layer

Your spaces and specialistspages read when the task needs them

for your work

inside a code folder

~/.claude/CLAUDE.mdyour own file

<code folder>/CLAUDE.mdthe code's own rules

Your spaces and specialistsnot loaded

for the code alone

The starting folder decides every row.

try it

Open a fresh session from the instibrain button. Type this and press Enter:

/context

you should see

Under Memory files: ~/.instibrain/claude/CLAUDE.md and the files it imports, ~/instibrain/CLAUDE.md among them.