What is church-of-code CLAUDE.md?

A documentation-only software engineering manifesto written in Markdown, with three versions sized for different amounts of assistant context. It also includes instructions and scripts for packaging the text as a Claude Code plugin skill.

It helps maintain the Markdown documents, rebuild the context-sized variants, synchronize the plugin version, and package the result for Claude Code.

It keeps the manifesto's full and shortened versions synchronized and documents how to update, verify, and package them.

How The-Church-of-Code/church-of-code configures Claude Code

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to The-Church-of-Code/church-of-code. 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/The-Church-of-Code/church-of-code/master/CLAUDE.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/The-Church-of-Code/church-of-code

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/the-church-of-code/church-of-code/claude-md/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/the-church-of-code/church-of-code/claude-md)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/the-church-of-code/church-of-code/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/the-church-of-code/church-of-code/claude-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/the-church-of-code/church-of-code/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/the-church-of-code/church-of-code/claude-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 1,184 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 1,184 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.01184	$0.01184
Opus 5.5	$0.00474	$0.00474
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00237	$0.00237
Haiku 4.5	$0.00118	$0.00118

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 9cf065812e8e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

church-of-code 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 2mo 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.

CLAUDE.md · 81 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 81 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

What This Repository Is

This is a documentation-only repository — there is no source code, no build system, no dependencies. The product is a software engineering manifesto maintained as Markdown scripture in three synchronized context-size variants.

File Roles

File	Role
CHURCH-OF-CODE.md	Canonical scripture (full). All edits start here.
CHURCH-OF-CODE-medium-context.md	~1/3 byte reduction. Derived from full.
CHURCH-OF-CODE-small-context.md	~2/3 byte reduction. Derived from medium.
BUILD.md	Complete rebuild process and verification checklist.
README.md	Project overview, AI agent integration, and editorial rules for scripture amendments.
WHY-THIS-WORKS.md	Analysis of why religious framing improves AI code generation.
LICENSE	MIT.
package-skill	Bash script that packages the scripture as a Claude Code plugin-wrapped skill. Run after scripture changes.
.claude-plugin/plugin.json	Plugin manifest. Version field is auto-synced from scripture by `package-skill`.
.claude-plugin/marketplace.json	Single-plugin marketplace definition. Version auto-synced.
skills/church-of-code/SKILL.md	Skill definition. References the three scripture files bundled alongside it.
skills/church-of-code/CHURCH-OF-CODE*.md	Generated copies of the canonical scripture. Do NOT edit directly — regenerated by `package-skill`.

Rebuilding the Variants

When the full scripture changes, both variants must be regenerated. Read BUILD.md for the complete process. Key points:

Build order: Medium from full first, then small from medium.

Section processing order within each file:

Book of Abominations (largest cut)
Sacred Scrolls
Twelve Commandments
Articles of Faith
Daily Offices
Preamble (last — ensures proportion)
Byte-count check

Reduction principle: Cut metaphorical elaboration, keep declarative doctrinal statements. Reductions trim elaboration — never remove topics. Every commandment, article, sin, and office must be present in all three files.

Read the full file on GitHub · 81 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.

2mo ago First seen · 81 lines · 1,184 tokens per session scan A 9cf065812e8e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

church-of-code CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository The-Church-of-Code/church-of-code (5 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,184 tokens to every session, about $0.0047 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 2026-08-31.

Git and workflow Releases Writing and docs

church-of-code CLAUDE.md next to 6 instructions from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
church-of-code CLAUDE.mdThe-Church-of-Code/church-of-code	Instructions file	5	4mo ago	MIT	A	1,184	Claude Code
vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	9,719	GitHub Copilot
next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js	Instructions file	143k	yesterday	MIT	A	7,461	Codex, OpenCode
langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain	Instructions file	149k	yesterday	MIT	A	4,680	Codex, OpenCode
vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	5,516	GitHub Copilot
vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	3,093	GitHub Copilot
deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness	Instructions file	274k	2d ago	MIT	A	4,313	Codex, OpenCode

church-of-code: Instructions file for Claude Code