Global and folder instructions

If you've ever caught yourself typing "use a professional tone" or "I'm a marketing manager" at the start of every Claude session, this is the fix — and it takes less than five minutes to set up.

The Brilliant Amnesiac Problem

Here's the frustrating reality of working with Claude without instructions: it's like having a brilliant assistant with amnesia. Every conversation, you start from scratch. You explain your role. You re-specify your tone. You remind it how you like data formatted. You're not getting leverage — you're doing admin.

Let me make this concrete. Say you're a marketing manager at a B2B SaaS company. Every time you open Claude, you want: professional but conversational tone, metric-driven language, executive summary first, data in tables, competitor context included. Right now, you're typing some version of that every single session. That's not a workflow problem — it's a setup problem. And global instructions solve it permanently.

Three Levels of Context (and Why All Three Matter)

Before jumping to setup, understand the architecture. There are three layers of instructions:

• Global instructions — things about you that never change. Your role, your industry, your formatting preferences.
• Folder instructions — things about a specific project that matter. Client context, templates, approval workflows.
• Session-level requests — what you need right now, in this specific conversation.

Most people only use the third layer. That's why they're exhausted. When you layer all three, Claude stops being a generic assistant and becomes your assistant — one that already knows your world before you type a single word.

Where to Set Up Global Instructions

Go to Settings in the bottom left of Claude's interface. Click Co-work. Then find Edit Global Instructions. You'll see a text box with a note: Instructions here apply to all Co-work sessions. Use this for preferences, conventions, and context that Claude should know.

That's your permanent context layer. Whatever you write there fires at the start of every session — automatically, invisibly, without you lifting a finger.

What to Put in Your Global Instructions

There are three categories that do most of the work:

1. Your Role and Background

Don't be vague. "I'm a marketing manager" is fine. "I'm a marketing director at a B2B SaaS company focused on enterprise security solutions, and I've been in this industry for eight years" is better. The specificity matters because it calibrates Claude's assumptions. Whether you're reviewing competitive positioning or drafting a content strategy, Claude now knows your expertise level and the lens you're working from — without you explaining it.

2. Your Tone and Format Preferences

This is where you eliminate the most friction. Something like: Always use a professional but conversational tone — think smart colleague, not corporate robot. Format reports with an executive summary first. Use metric-driven language and avoid fluff. Once this is set, Claude builds output to match your voice automatically. You stop editing AI-speak into human-speak after the fact.

3. Your Always-Include and Always-Exclude Rules

These are your guardrails. Examples that actually work: Always include competitor context when relevant. Never use marketing jargon without defining it first. When suggesting campaigns, include budget estimates. These shape every response without a single repeated instruction. They're the difference between Claude being technically correct and Claude being useful to you specifically.

Folder Instructions: The Project Layer

Here's where it gets genuinely powerful. When you grant Claude access to a specific folder — say, your client projects folder — you can add instructions scoped only to that folder. Example: This folder contains deliverables for Acme Group. Use our standard template format. Client contact is Sara, VP of Operations. Always request approval before sharing externally.

Now Claude knows three things at once: your preferences globally, this project's rules at the folder level, and whatever you're asking for in this specific session. Each layer is more specific than the last. The session request sits inside the folder context, which sits inside your global preferences. That's the layering effect — and it's what makes Claude feel less like a tool and more like someone who already knows your world.

The Pro Tip: Start Stupidly Simple

Most people overthink this and end up with a 500-word instruction document they never maintain. Don't do that. Start with three things: your role and industry, one tone preference, one format preference. Then live with it for a week.

You'll notice moments where you think, I keep having to say this. That's your signal. That thing goes into global instructions. Instructions should evolve with how you work — they're not a one-time document, they're a living config. You can always go back to Settings → Co-work → Edit Global Instructions and update them. I showed you exactly where it is. Use it.

A Practical Starting Point

If you want to run this right now, here's the sequence:

• Open Settings → Co-work → Edit Global Instructions
• Write one sentence about who you are: your role, your industry, your experience level
• Add one sentence on tone: how you like Claude to communicate with you
• Add one sentence on format: how you want outputs structured by default
• Add one rule about what to always include or always avoid
• Save it and start a new session — notice the difference immediately

Then, once that feels natural, grant folder access to your current project and add folder-level instructions. Client name, template format, approval rules — whatever's specific to that work.

What Changes When This Is Set Up

The payoff isn't just time saved on typing. It's qualitative. Claude starts producing outputs that actually match your standards on the first attempt, not the third. You spend less time editing and more time using. The sessions feel less like briefing a contractor and more like working with a colleague who already has context. That's the shift global and folder instructions create — not magic, just setup done right.

Start with your role, your tone, and one format rule. Add your folder instructions for whatever project you're in the middle of. Then notice what you keep repeating — and add that too. The instructions build over time, and so does the leverage.