How Claude remembers your project changedmemory
Nearest release: v2.1.283, published 5 hours before upstream edited the page. Shown because the two are within 24 hours of each other. Nothing here says the release caused the edit.
Upstream edited this page at 26 Sep 2026 00:30 UTC, give or take a minute or two: the time comes from Anthropic’s own sitemap rather than from a commit. This site recorded the change at 26 Sep 2026 00:37 UTC.
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243243ln -s ~/company-standards/security.md .claude/rules/security.md
244244```
245245
246If you point a `.claude/rules/` or `CLAUDE.md` symlink at a network path such as the UNC share `\\server\share` or a path under `/net` or `/Network`, the linked instructions don't load. Claude Code doesn't follow the link, because looking up such a path can contact the host it names. `\\wsl$` paths don't count as network paths.
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246248#### User-level rules
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248250Personal rules in `~/.claude/rules/` apply to every project on your machine. Use them for preferences that aren't project-specific:
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580582### My CLAUDE.md is too large
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582584Files over 200 lines consume more context and may reduce adherence. Claude Code skips a file over 4 MiB. Use [path-scoped rules](#path-specific-rules) to load instructions only when Claude works with matching files, or trim content that isn't needed in every session. Splitting into [`@path` imports](#import-additional-files) helps organization but doesn't reduce context, since imported files load at launch.
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586If one of your instruction files is over the recommended length, you see a warning at startup and when you run `/status`. You also see a warning when files that are each within that length add up past a combined limit at session start. Each CLAUDE.md, rules file, and `@path` import counts as a separate file.
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584588The [`/doctor`](/docs/en/commands#all-commands) checkup proposes trims for a checked-in CLAUDE.md: it cuts content Claude can derive from the codebase, such as directory layouts, dependency lists, and architecture overviews, and keeps pitfalls, rationale, and conventions that differ from tool defaults. The trim check requires Claude Code v2.1.206 or later.
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