CLAUDE.md: set the trajectory

Build-along · ~10 min at your own keyboard

CLAUDE.md is read before message one. It's the heading you set leaving the dock. A one-degree error at departure lands you in the wrong county, and small instructions compound the same way across a long session. For an agent, this file holds your voice, your farm area, your brokerage, and the compliance lines you never cross. Other coding tools read a similar file called AGENTS.md; same idea, different name.

Where these ideas come from: AGENTS.md (AI Hero dictionary). Paraphrased here.

Your starter: CLAUDE.md for a listing agent

Instructions

Make it yours: Put your own market, brokerage and price band in the brackets, keep only the never-lines your broker would sign, and cut it to what you would defend at a closing table.

# CLAUDE.md

## WHO I AM
- [Agent, brokerage, market in one line, e.g. buyer's agent, west-side condos and first homes]
- [Price band and the two neighborhoods you work most]

## HOW I WRITE
- Listing copy names the house: rooms, light, lot, distance to the things on the map.
- Every number comes from the MLS sheet or the county card; name which.
- Drafts to clients are short and end with the one next step.

## NEVER
- Never describe who should live here. Describe the property, never the people.
- Never state a figure I have not seen on a sheet. Write [CHECK WITH BROKER: figure] instead.
- Never promise a timeline, a rate or an appraisal outcome.
- Never send anything to a client; I send.

The coach checks that what you paste back is your own work. The starter pasted back unchanged won't pass.

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Share what happened

Paste your 5 CLAUDE.md bullets and one line on what the fresh session did differently.