Context is king

Context is king - and how to keep your projects separate.

Over the last six months I've been learning how to apply AI tools to websites, with life science marketing in mind. I'm starting this blog to share some of my learnings.

I'm starting with context, because everything else in this series depends on it.

Claude Code knows nothing about your technology until you tell it, and it won't say so. It will write a fluent paragraph anyway. In life science marketing, the details that make a paragraph usable are the ones it can't guess: the approved claim, the intended use, the audience, what the regulator allows.

Everything you give it before it starts working is its context. With too little, it fills the gaps with guesses. With too much, the important parts get buried and you pay for the extra in tokens. I aim for just enough, chosen on purpose, with pointers to specific files instead of everything pasted in.

If you work on several projects at once, there's a second problem: keeping them apart. Information about one product can be irrelevant for another. Context from one project should not leak into the next.

Here's the structure I use. Each project gets its own folder and its own workspace, with four files:

• CLAUDE.md: operating guidance for the AI and rules for this project. I keep it under 200 lines, and most of it points to the other files.

• Instructions.md: the project scope, constraints, people involved, what needs to be accomplished, and a folder map of all the relevant project files so that the AI can easily locate the files it needs.

• Project context.md: background on the project and relevant technologies.

• Progress.md: what's been done and what comes next. I ask Claude to update it regularly.

CLAUDE.md points to the other three, so every session starts from the same background. Because these are plain text files, I can read them, correct them and keep them tidy myself. When the AI gets something wrong, I fix the file, not the chat.

Getting started is quick. Claude Code has an /init command that creates a first version of CLAUDE.md. If you already use Claude Chat or Cowork, you can export its memory and start from that. Either way, expect to edit it.

Two tips:

1. Start smaller than you think. Three accurate paragraphs beat a 40-page briefing. Add a line each time you catch yourself repeating an instruction.

2. Keep one workspace per project. The AI can only see the files in that workspace, so it can't quote from a project it can't see. That's the point.

If you'd like help building this into your team's workflow, get in touch.

Next issue: what happens when the context fills up, and how to manage it.

Which detail about your technology, product or company do you find yourself re-explaining to AI most often?