A handful of observations from working with Claude Code day to day — about memory, context, modes, and a couple of useful skills. Nothing groundbreaking, just the things I wish someone had told me earlier. Setup once These are the things you do at the start of a project (or once per machine) and forget about — but they pay back on every single session. CLAUDE.md . Put commands for running tests and linters here, along with an architecture overview, what NOT to touch, and code style conventions. The agent reads this file automatically, so you don't have to repeat the same things in every prompt. If your project has multiple areas, you can drop a separate CLAUDE.md into each one: the agent will pick up both the root file and the one closest to the files it's working on. Cultivate auto memory deliberately. Auto memory is Claude Code's built-in notebook where the agent stores notes between sessions on its own: build commands, debugging insights, your style preferences.…