Claude Code in Production: How to Keep Long Runs Stable

Long Claude Code sessions fail in three distinct ways: context window exhaustion, goal drift, and compounding errors. This guide presents a production workflow to address all three. Key strategies include decomposing work into bounded phases with explicit entry/exit criteria, using CLAUDE.md for persistent project context, front-loading constraints in every prompt, committing to git at every phase boundary, and using verification gates that force Claude to restate its plan before writing code. The guide also covers recognizing context degradation signals (repeated file reads, contradicted decisions), failure recovery patterns for botched edits and goal drift, and a full production stability checklist. A sample rate-limiting implementation walkthrough demonstrates the complete workflow in practice.