Give Claude the Context It Can't Guess

A foundational habit of giving Claude the specifics of your situation it has no way to know — who the audience is, what happened before, the goal, the constraints — instead of a bare request stripped of context.

Claude has broad general knowledge but zero knowledge of your particular circumstances. A request like 'write a follow-up email' forces it to invent a generic scenario, and generic is exactly what you don't want. The relevant background — the prior conversation, the reader's role, what you're trying to achieve — is what lets it produce something specific enough to actually use.

Almost always, but especially for anything about your work, people, or project: emails, plans, decisions, code in an unfamiliar codebase. The more your situation shapes the right answer, the more context matters.

Self-contained tasks where your situation is irrelevant — 'explain how TCP handshakes work' needs no background about you. And don't dump irrelevant context; more isn't better, relevant is better.

Task: <what you want>.
Context you need: who this is for (<audience>), what led to it (<background>), the goal (<outcome>), constraints (<length, tone, must-include, must-avoid>).

Use this context; don't invent a generic scenario. If something important is still missing, ask me before proceeding.

Instead of 'write a follow-up email', you add: it's to a client who went quiet after a proposal, you've worked together two years, and the goal is to re-open without sounding pushy. Claude writes something warm and specific to that history — not the templated 'just checking in' it would have produced blind.

When you find yourself pasting the same background every session, move it into a Project's custom instructions or a reusable brief so Claude always has it. Persistent context turns repeated setup into a one-time investment.

• Assuming Claude remembers context from a different chat — each conversation starts fresh unless you're in a Project with memory.
• Burying the actual request under paragraphs of context, so the ask gets lost; lead with the task, then the background.
• Withholding context to 'test' Claude, then being disappointed by a generic answer to a generic prompt.