Using 'House rules' instead of 'RULES' improves Claude instruction adherence
Necessary_Abroad6632 · reddit · 2026-08-15
A user found that changing the heading in their CLAUDE.md from "STRICT RULES MUST FOLLOW" to "House rules" and switching the tone from imperative to collaborative ("we/this repo") significantly improved the model's long-term adherence to rules.
Observations:
- The old format worked early in sessions but adherence drifted as context filled up.
- The new format held up better in long sessions with identical content.
Hypothesis:
- Caps and imperative phrasing may be treated as boilerplate noise with low signal value.
- "House rules" reads as norms of a shared workspace rather than a bolted-on compliance block, likely increasing the model's adherence through a stronger collaborative framing.
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