What to Put in Your Claude Project Instructions (The Setup Most People Skip)
What to Put in Your Claude Project Instructions
If you have set up a Claude Project and left the instructions field mostly empty, you are not alone. Most people create the Project, add a vague sentence or two, and wonder why the outputs are still hit or miss.
The instructions field is not a title. It is not a description of what the project is for. It is Claude’s operating brief for every conversation inside that project, and it is the most powerful leverage point in your entire Claude setup.
Here is what to put in it.
Layer One: Who You Are and What Your Business Does
Claude should know your name, your business name, your positioning, who you serve, and what you do for them. Not in a bio format. In a working brief.
Something like: My name is [Name]. I run [Business Name]. I help [audience] who [specific situation] to [specific outcome]. My approach is different from most people in this space because [your differentiation]. Everything Claude produces for me should be informed by this positioning.
This layer stops Claude from making assumptions about your context that produce generic output. It also means that when you ask for strategic input, Claude filters it through your actual positioning rather than a generic version of your category.
Layer Two: Your Voice Rules
The short version of what belongs here is: what your writing sounds like, what you would never say, and a real example of your writing that Claude can pattern-match against.
The no-list is as important as the yes-list. If you never use em dashes, say so explicitly. If you never use corporate language, bullet points in captions, or phrases like it is worth noting, put them in the voice rules. The output quality jumps noticeably when Claude has clear negative constraints alongside positive ones.
Layer Three: Your Current Goals
Claude should know what you are working on right now so it can filter every recommendation through what actually moves your business forward in this period.
Current goals does not mean your three-year vision. It means your 90-day focus. What you are trying to launch, build, fill, or grow. When Claude knows this, it stops giving you advice that is strategically correct but irrelevant to where you are today.
Layer Four: How You Want Claude to Work With You
This is the layer most people never think to include. It covers how Claude should behave in conversation, not just what it should know.
Do you want Claude to push back when you are heading in the wrong direction? Tell it. Do you want it to give you options rather than a single recommendation? Tell it. Do you want it to flag when something conflicts with your stated goals? Tell it.
Claude is a tool, but it is also a thinking partner. The instructions field is where you configure how that partnership works.
Layer Five: Recurring Context Claude Should Always Know
Offer names and prices so Claude never references them incorrectly. Platform specifics so Claude understands the context of your business operations. Anything that would be awkward or incorrect for Claude to get wrong in a client-facing piece of content.
Think of this as the things you would tell a new team member on day one. The things they need to know before they can help you without making embarrassing mistakes.
The Business Brain Setup Kit walks you through all five of these layers in sequence, with specific prompts for extracting and formatting each one. It is the setup most people skip. It is also the reason most people get less out of Claude than the people who take the afternoon to do it properly.
Build your Project instructions the right way
About Kim Stirling
Kim Stirling is a Claude for Business educator and the founder of the Clarity Before Automation framework. With 20 years of corporate operations experience, she helps coaches, consultants, and online business owners use Claude to build a backend that actually runs. Find her at kimstirling.com and @thekimstirling.
