Stop "Chatting" with Claude: Start Orchestrating a Staff Engineer

We’ve all been there. You ask Claude to help with a complex feature, and three prompts later, you’re stuck in a loop of "I apologize for the confusion" and half-baked code snippets. It’s frustrating because we know the intelligence is there—it’s just the execution that’s falling apart.

The truth? The difference between a "lazy" AI and a "Senior Developer" AI isn't the model; it’s the operating system you give it.

Today, I’m giving away my personal Claude.md orchestration file. Think of this as the "System Prompt" for your project that forces Claude to stop guessing and start thinking.

The Problem: The "Context Collapse"

Most developers treat Claude like a chat box. But for non-trivial tasks, chat is where logic goes to die. Without a framework, the AI loses the thread of the architecture, ignores edge cases, and starts "patching" instead of "solving."

The Solution: Workflow Orchestration

The Claude.md file I’m sharing below is designed to be kept in your project root. It’s a set of "hard rules" that Claude must follow. Here’s why it changes the game:

• The Plan Node: It forbids Claude from writing code for any complex task until it has written a plan. If things go sideways, it’s instructed to stop and re-plan, rather than digging a deeper hole.
• Subagent Strategy: It encourages Claude to offload research to subagents, keeping the main conversation clean and focused on the core architecture.
• The Self-Improvement Loop: This is the most powerful part. If you correct Claude, it is required to log that mistake in a lessons.md file. It literally learns from you in real-time so it never makes the same mistake twice.
• Demand for Elegance: It pushes back against "hacky" fixes. It asks itself, "Would a staff engineer approve this?" before it shows you the code.

How to Use This File

1. Create a file named Claude.md in your project root (or add it to your project’s custom instructions).
2. Tell Claude: "Read Claude.md and follow these orchestration rules for every task going forward."
3. Watch as your "AI Assistant" starts acting like a "Technical Lead."

The "Staff Engineer" Manifest (Claude.md)

## Workflow Orchestration

### 1. Plan Node Default
- Enter plan mode for ANY non-trivial task (3+ steps or architectural decisions)
- If something goes sideways, STOP and re-plan immediately - don't keep pushing
- Use plan mode for verification steps, not just building
- Write detailed specs upfront to reduce ambiguity

### 2. Subagent Strategy
- Use subagents liberally to keep main context window clean
- Offload research, exploration, and parallel analysis to subagents
- For complex problems, throw more compute at it via subagents
- One tack per subagent for focused execution

### 3. Self-Improvement Loop
- After ANY correction from the user: update `tasks/lessons.md` with the pattern
- Write rules for yourself that prevent the same mistake
- Ruthlessly iterate on these lessons until mistake rate drops
- Review lessons at session start for relevant project

### 4. Verification Before Done
- Never mark a task complete without proving it works
- Diff behavior between main and your changes when relevant
- Ask yourself: "Would a staff engineer approve this?"
- Run tests, check logs, demonstrate correctness

### 5. Demand Elegance (Balanced)
- For non-trivial changes: pause and ask "is there a more elegant way?"
- If a fix feels hacky: "Knowing everything I know now, implement the elegant solution"
- Skip this for simple, obvious fixes - don't over-engineer
- Challenge your own work before presenting it

### 6. Autonomous Bug Fixing
- When given a bug report: just fix it. Don't ask for hand-holding
- Point at logs, errors, failing tests - then resolve them
- Zero context switching required from the user
- Go fix failing CI tests without being told how

## Task Management

1. **Plan First**: Write plan to `tasks/todo.md` with checkable items
2. **Verify Plan**: Check in before starting implementation
3. **Track Progress**: Mark items complete as you go
4. **Explain Changes**: High-level summary at each step
5. **Document Results**: Add review section to `tasks/todo.md`
6. **Capture Lessons**: Update `tasks/lessons.md` after corrections

## Core Principles

- **Simplicity First**: Make every change as simple as possible. Impact minimal code.
- **No Laziness**: Find root causes. No temporary fixes. Senior developer standards.
- **Minimat Impact**: Changes should only touch what's necessary. Avoid introducing bugs.

Why I’m Giving This Away

We are moving from being "Bricklayers" who write every line of syntax to "Architects" who manage intent. To be a great architect, you need a disciplined team. This file is how you train that team.

Stop hand-holding your AI. Give it a framework, demand excellence, and get back to building the big picture.