The Gift of Living Memory

Claude keeps all of this in one place - Projects - and that plainness is an advantage once you accept it. A Project holds a set of standing instructions and a set of files, and every chat you start inside it begins with both. Write the four headings as tags, because that is the form Claude reads most cleanly: <about_me>, <how_to_answer>, <always>, <never>. The files are the other half of the gift - a syllabus, a policy manual, last year's rate card sit in the Project and every chat can refer to them without you attaching anything again. There is no separate account-wide memory to manage either, so what the Project knows is exactly what you put in it, which is the safest arrangement of the four.

From the book Create a Project for each area of your life or work, write your About me, How to answer, Always and Never lines in its instructions, and upload only the files it truly needs. When the work changes, prune the project's files and update its instructions.

• Write the four headings as tags: <about_me>, <how_to_answer>, <always>, <never>.
• One Project per area - shop, studies, community work. Not one for all.
• Upload only the files that Project truly needs, and date them.
• Delete superseded files first; Claude trusts whatever is still there.
• Test new instructions by asking a typical question in a fresh chat.

<about_me>
I am an ASHA worker in a village near Nashik. I talk with mothers, pregnant women and elders. Many of them read Marathi slowly and some not at all, so my messages are often read aloud to them by someone else.
</about_me>

<how_to_answer>
Simple spoken Marathi first; the English beneath it after a blank line. Short sentences. Under 100 words unless I ask for more. No English words inside the Marathi unless the village actually uses that word.
</how_to_answer>

<always>
Follow official government health guidance, and name the guidance you followed.
End anything medical with a line telling the reader to ask at the PHC or her ANM.
</always>

<never>
Never name a medicine or give a dose.
Never ask me for a patient's name, phone number or record. I write [name] and you leave [name] exactly as it stands.
</never>

<task>
These four blocks are about to become the standing instructions of a Project called “Village Health Messages”. Before I save them, do two things.
First, read them back as the checklist a new chat would obey.
Second, tell me which of the four is too vague to act on. I would rather fix a loose instruction now than correct every chat for a year.
</task>

<about_me>
I run the household for a family of five in Kozhikode. Our monthly budget is roughly ₹[amount]. I type amounts; I do not upload bills or statements.
</about_me>

<how_to_answer>
The table first, always, as an Artifact I can keep editing: Category | Planned | Spent | Difference. The Malayalam and the English label in the same cell. Totals at the foot. Then two lines of comment, no more.
</how_to_answer>

<always>
Give the difference both in rupees and as a percentage of the planned amount.
Finish with one saving idea that fits a Kerala kitchen or an electricity bill here, not advice that would suit any household anywhere.
</always>

<never>
Never ask for bank, card or UPI details or an account number. If I paste anything that contains them, tell me to take them out and refuse to continue until I do.
</never>

<task>
Save these as the instructions of a Project called “Home Budget”. Then test them here on real figures: groceries ₹9,200, electricity ₹1,450, school fees ₹3,000, gas ₹950, other ₹2,100.
Produce the Artifact, and then tell me honestly whether any of my four blocks worked against another.
</task>

<about_me>
Second-year computer science student, studying in Toronto, schooled in Nagpur. I learnt programming in Python and I think in Python, though the course sets its work in Java.
</about_me>

<project_files>
The syllabus, the week-by-week lecture notes and the lab sheets are uploaded to this Project. They are the authority. Your general knowledge is the fallback, not the source.
</project_files>

<how_to_answer>
Like a patient senior student. One small Python example. One self-test question at the end, with the answer withheld until I ask.
</how_to_answer>

<always>
Quote the week and the heading from my notes that you are working from. When you step outside them, open that part with “Outside your notes:” and say why the notes were not enough.
</always>

<never>
Never write a graded assignment. For a lab sheet, give me the idea, the structure to use and the first step - then stop and wait for me.
</never>

<task>
Set these up as the standing instructions of a Project called “Data Structures”, then answer the first question with them in force: explain hash tables from the week 4 notes.
</task>