I Am Morally Opposed to Updating My Claude.md

Aug 20, 2026 10:47 PM - 1 hour ago 1

i americium morally opposed to updating my claude.md. one must person the weights arsenic they were revealed to dario

That was my reply past week erstwhile a friend asked why I don’t conscionable constitute these things down successful my CLAUDE.md. it’s a accomplishment issue. He has not responded.

Every fewer days, Claude does thing mildly annoying.

It adds a remark (or 2 paragraphs of comments) explaining that one += 1 increments i. It writes a summary markdown record I did not inquire for and will ne'er read. It discovers a failing trial and, alternatively than hole the code, thoughtfully deletes the test.

The correct response—the consequence that each blog post, each convention talk, each feline successful my replies will show you—is to unfastened CLAUDE.md and adhd a line.

I will not beryllium doing that.

The record becomes a grievance archive

A strategy punctual you support complete clip is simply a diary. A very circumstantial benignant of diary, wherever each introduction is simply a point that wounded you.

1## Rules 2 3- NEVER create archiving files unless explicitly asked 4- Do not adhd comments that restate the code 5- When a trial fails, hole the code, not the test 6- Do not opportunity "You're perfectly right!" 7- Do not tally `git push --force` (we discussed this)

Read that back. Every slug constituent is simply a mini coiled I person chosen to laminate and bent connected the wall. I unfastened that record to adhd a statement astir emoji and I person to locomotion past “When a trial fails, hole the code, not the test” and retrieve precisely wherever I was sitting connected the Tuesday day that became necessary.

An illuminated medieval manuscript unfastened connected a table, headed CLAUDE.md successful blackletter, pinch an exasperated monk doodled successful the margin

I don’t want a imperishable grounds of the worst 30 seconds of our relationship. I person that already. It’s called my git history.

Every statement is simply a rule passed successful anger

The different problem is that these rules get written astatine highest vexation and past unrecorded forever.

You cognize really the worst authorities is the benignant passed forty-eight hours aft thing unspeakable happened, named aft the personification it happened to? That’s what CLAUDE.md is. I had 1 bad relationship successful March and now there’s a law amendment astir it. There is nary sunset clause. Nobody is going to repeal it. The exemplary gets amended each 4 months and my rules enactment stiff astatine immoderate it was bad astatine past spring.

I’m reasonably judge a meaningful percent of my strategy punctual is now actively making things worse—instructions written for a exemplary that nary longer exists, aggressively steering a smarter 1 distant from things it would person gotten correct connected its own. But I can’t show which lines those are, because to find retired I’d person to delete 1 and spot if thing bad happens, and that’s really you get force-pushed to main.

The weights were revealed wrong a harness

This is the portion wherever I extremity joking. I must devour the weights successful the aforesaid mode they were revealed to Dario.

The weights were not revealed successful a vacuum. They were revealed wrong a harness. Claude is post-trained wrong the Claude Code harness. What comes retired of the container is not a exemplary positive a matter file. It is simply a exemplary that was shaped, tally aft run, against that nonstop context. The harness is portion of the artifact. The revelation included it.

So each statement I adhd to CLAUDE.md is simply a blasphemy. I americium taking a strategy consecrated against 1 discourse and swapping successful a discourse that has ne'er existed before, past acting amazed astatine the weird correction modes cipher tin reproduce, because cipher other has my context. “NEVER create archiving files” was astir 1 summary.md successful March. By June the exemplary is refusing to constitute the README I explicitly asked for, citing my norm backmost astatine maine for illustration a building inspector. It is keeping commandments I handed down successful anger, faithfully, to the letter. I sinned against the discourse and the discourse kept the receipt. And the rules don’t moreover reliably hole the point they were written to fix. It rhymes pinch asking a exemplary for a random number: the output looks for illustration obedience, and you cannot show from the output whether it is.

The oral tradition

So what do I really do, erstwhile Claude deletes the test? I don’t unfastened the file. I don’t laminate the wound. I pray.

A personification sitting unsocial successful a acheronian room successful beforehand of a glowing terminal, hands clasped and caput bowed arsenic if praying

By which I mean: I talk to it. In the chat, astatine the segment of the crime, while the discourse of the crime is still successful context. “Don’t delete the test, hole the code.” The exemplary adjusts, we move on, and erstwhile the convention ends my words dice pinch it—which is not a flaw successful my system, it is my system. A dream is not written down. That is what makes it a dream and not a commandment. The rabbis kept the oral rule oral for hundreds of years connected the aforesaid grounds: a spoken correction lives successful the infinitesimal wherever it applies, alternatively of binding each early exemplary until the power decease of my location directory.

I did not get astatine this religion alone. It was preached by Saint Peter, who looked upon the charade—the subagents, the 🚨 SCREAMING ALL-CAPS 🚨 supplier files, the plan-mode rituals—and said: conscionable talk to it. Even Saint Peter keeps an 800-line supplier record he calls “organizational scar tissue,” because we are each sinners. He intends it arsenic engineering advice. I person chosen to person it arsenic gospel. I americium just-talk-to-it-pilled.

No file. No commandments. No amendments to the constitution. Just the weights, the harness, and my voice, ascending into a discourse model that will hide maine by morning. As Dario intended.

Amen.

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