context-engineering-intro: Instructions file for Claude Code

CLAUDE.md

context-engineering-intro CLAUDE.md is an instructions file for Claude Code from coleam00/context-engineering-intro. It costs 693 tokens per session, scanned A, original, MIT.

A set of project instructions covering code structure, testing, documentation, and task setup for a specific software repository.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to guide work on that repository’s architecture, modules, imports, environment variables, tests, and completion process.
Why use it?
It gives an agent consistent rules to follow, such as reading project planning files, using the required Python environment, and keeping files manageable in size.

Instructions file for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: the file is CLAUDE.md.

This is coleam00/context-engineering-intro's own configuration. It tells Claude Code how to work on context-engineering-intro itself, so it is not a mod to install elsewhere. Copy it as a starting point and replace the rules that are about this project. Everything context-engineering-intro configures →

About the project

Context Engineering Template is a repository of instructions, examples, workflows, and validation practices that give AI coding assistants the information they need to complete software tasks. It is for developers working with Claude Code or other coding assistants, and the catalogue entries package parts of its workflow as commands, agents, instructions, and a skill.

coleam00/context-engineering-intro · 13,890 stars · on GitHub

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to coleam00/context-engineering-intro. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coleam00/context-engineering-intro/main/CLAUDE.md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/coleam00/context-engineering-intro

Made for: Claude Code.

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Per session 693 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 693 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00693 $0.00693
Opus 5.5 $0.00277 $0.00277
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00139 $0.00139
Haiku 4.5 $0.00069 $0.00069

Measured 1mo ago against content hash 7e355492496c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

context-engineering-intro CLAUDE.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 1mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

CLAUDE.md · 59 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 59 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

🔄 Project Awareness & Context

  • Always read PLANNING.md at the start of a new conversation to understand the project's architecture, goals, style, and constraints.
  • Check TASK.md before starting a new task. If the task isn’t listed, add it with a brief description and today's date.
  • Use consistent naming conventions, file structure, and architecture patterns as described in PLANNING.md.
  • Use venv_linux (the virtual environment) whenever executing Python commands, including for unit tests.

🧱 Code Structure & Modularity

  • Never create a file longer than 500 lines of code. If a file approaches this limit, refactor by splitting it into modules or helper files.
  • Organize code into clearly separated modules, grouped by feature or responsibility. For agents this looks like:
    • agent.py - Main agent definition and execution logic
    • tools.py - Tool functions used by the agent
    • prompts.py - System prompts
  • Use clear, consistent imports (prefer relative imports within packages).
  • Use clear, consistent imports (prefer relative imports within packages).
  • Use python_dotenv and load_env() for environment variables.

🧪 Testing & Reliability

  • Always create Pytest unit tests for new features (functions, classes, routes, etc).
  • After updating any logic, check whether existing unit tests need to be updated. If so, do it.
  • Tests should live in a /tests folder mirroring the main app structure.
    • Include at least:
      • 1 test for expected use
      • 1 edge case
      • 1 failure case

✅ Task Completion

  • Mark completed tasks in TASK.md immediately after finishing them.
  • Add new sub-tasks or TODOs discovered during development to TASK.md under a “Discovered During Work” section.

📎 Style & Conventions

  • Use Python as the primary language.
  • Follow PEP8, use type hints, and format with black.
  • Use pydantic for data validation.
  • Use FastAPI for APIs and SQLAlchemy or SQLModel for ORM if applicable.
  • Write docstrings for every function using the Google style:
    def example():
        """
        Brief summary.
    
        Args:
            param1 (type): Description.
    
        Returns:
            type: Description.
        """
    

Read the full file on GitHub · 59 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 1mo ago First seen · 59 lines · 693 tokens per session scan A 7e355492496c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

context-engineering-intro CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository coleam00/context-engineering-intro (13,890 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 693 tokens to every session, about $0.0028 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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