Recall – Local project memory for Claude Code

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• I think the majority here have stated the same... That CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md effectively do this. Either that or the readme.

  The only tip I can give is that your skill that builds or wraps up work. You should have it update those files if anything has changed.

  Claude/Agents files shouldn't be bloated, but should imho act as a basic amount of context on the project so your agent and skills can pick up and go, with even the most basic initial prompt.

  by intothemild
• How does this beat a Session specific README?
  by tt_dev
• I use Deepseek and just as it to generate a state.md file with a summary of the project every time I've reached a goal or milestone. I then take a few minutes to edit this and add in or take out details. Between token pricing and generous cache discounts This has proved very efficient so far, I reset every few hours of work and bypass the muddle of having too many priorities or over-extrapolation from un-nuanced instructions I gave at an earlier stage.

  I do think that this project is interesting in several ways - prioritizing privacy, minimizing spend, and using objective semantic markers to sift and consolidate the key takeaways from long sessions. I'd like to try it on my cline project history. But while it would make a great recording of project history, I wonder if a lot of it doesn't end up detailing blind alleys the project went down and had to back out of.

  Generally when this happens I feel that it's due to vague specification on my part, or avoiding architectural decisions I didn't want to deal with and implicitly inviting the model to implement a lowest-common-denominator solution.

  by anigbrowl
• Hm, I just keep a folder called something like `status_docs/` in any project I work on and I create a new file in that folder any day I'm working on a project that's dated (e.g. `project/status_docs/2026_06_21_status.md`). It's basically a project diary that both me and the LLM can reference.

  I have the LLM at some point in the day while working on the project create that file with all the relevant context. And then I'll periodically have it update that file (often before I compact the context window, or before I switch to a new task). And then I just have the LLM update it whenever I'm done working on the project for the day.

  Then no matter what, if I come back that project again a day later, a week later, a month later, whatever – I just literally point a fresh session at the most recent status doc to help both me and the LLM orient ourselves to the work at hand. What's really nice too is having it reference the status docs from previous days to help orient it for creating the new status doc for the current day.

  I've been doing this informally for probably over a year now, and have started formalizing it so I do it with every project. It's been a big help to me personally given all the context switching between projects I've been doing more and more since using AI coding tools.

  by cootsnuck
• IntelliJ handles this for you. Basically it sends half your project to Claude even if you're asking some question about Star Wars.
  by comrade1234
• Sometimes its good to start fresh. LLMs need large context restart's sometimes so they can better identify holes that they become blind to.
  by SubiculumCode
• I might be missing out on something but I never had to explain my project. Just give it a task, or if you really want to, type it quickly, then you are good to go.

  I can’t imagine this being worth optimizing. The issue is never that Claude can’t figure out what the projects is about…

  Am I missing something or does this project not solve a problem most regular people have?

  by serial_dev
• I apparently use Claude differently the most people who talk about using Claude on the internet.

  I’ll typically have a bunch of short sessions over the course of a day. Anytime I start a task that isn’t going to very directly benefit from the existing context I start fresh.

  I don’t find a lot of benefit in explaining the project overall to Claude — I’ve deleted a lot of that explanation from my Claude.md because it didn’t seem to impact much.

  I typically start a task by pointing it to 1-2 files and giving it some explanation of what I want done, and it figures it out.

  Basically never hit context window limits or compactions, and can’t remember the last time I hit a 5 hour or a weekly limit.

  by mikeocool