A practical guide to setting up Claude Code as a proper development collaborator rather than an ad-hoc chat tool. Key strategies include writing a thorough CLAUDE.md as an onboarding document, using .claudeignore to keep context clean, externalizing plans and artifacts to disk for persistence across sessions, building reusable
Table of contents
The core insight: context is a resource #Start with CLAUDE.md — but write it properly #.claudeignore : what Claude doesn't see matters too #Externalizing artifacts: context that outlives the session #Skills: packaging your expertise #Connecting to your tools: CLI integration and MCP #Hooks: participating in your existing workflow #Remote control and model switching #Sort: