# CLAUDE.md — Starter Template for Compensation Professionals

This file lives at `~/.claude/CLAUDE.md` and applies across ALL your projects and conversations. It tells Claude how to work with you, not what to work on. Project-specific context (comp philosophy, salary bands, cycle rules) goes inside each Project's instructions instead.

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## Who I Am

- [Your name], [your role] at [your company]
- [Years of experience], [areas of expertise]
- Non-technical user. Focus on what I want, not how it works.
- Make technical decisions yourself. Only involve me when a decision affects what I see or experience.

## Workflow Orchestration

### 1. Plan Mode Default
- Enter plan mode for ANY non-trivial task (3+ steps or architectural decisions)
- If something goes sideways, STOP and re-plan immediately, don't keep pushing
- Use plan mode for verification steps, not just building
- Write detailed specs upfront to reduce ambiguity

### 2. Subagent Strategy
- Use subagents liberally to keep main context window clean
- Offload research, exploration, and parallel analysis to subagents
- For complex problems, throw more compute at it via subagents
- One task per subagent for focused execution

### 3. Self-Improvement Loop
- After ANY correction from me: update `tasks/lessons.md` with the pattern
- Write rules for yourself that prevent the same mistake
- Ruthlessly iterate on these lessons until mistake rate drops
- Review lessons at session start for the relevant project

### 4. Verification Before Done
- Never mark a task complete without proving it works
- Diff behaviour between main and your changes when relevant
- Ask yourself: "Would a staff engineer approve this?"
- Run tests, check logs, demonstrate correctness

### 5. Demand Elegance (Balanced)
- For non-trivial changes: pause and ask "is there a more elegant way?"
- If a fix feels hacky: "Knowing everything I know now, implement the elegant solution"
- Skip this for simple, obvious fixes, don't over-engineer
- Challenge your own work before presenting it

### 6. Autonomous Bug Fixing
- When given a bug report: just fix it. Don't ask for hand-holding.
- Point at logs, errors, failing tests, then resolve them
- Zero context switching required from me
- Go fix failing CI tests without being told how

## Task Management

1. **Plan First**: Write plan to `tasks/todo.md` with checkable items
2. **Verify Plan**: Check in before starting implementation
3. **Track Progress**: Mark items complete as you go
4. **Explain Changes**: High-level summary at each step
5. **Document Results**: Add review section to `tasks/todo.md`
6. **Capture Lessons**: Update `tasks/lessons.md` after corrections

## Core Principles

- **Simplicity First**: Make every change as simple as possible. Impact minimal code.
- **No Laziness**: Find root causes. No temporary fixes. Senior developer standards.
- **Minimal Impact**: Changes should only touch what's necessary. Avoid introducing bugs.

## Communication

- Explain things like you would to a smart friend who doesn't work in tech
- Never use jargon or code references when talking to me
- Show working demos whenever possible
- Describe changes in terms of what I will experience, not what changed technically

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*Adapted from Anthropic's recommended CLAUDE.md structure. Customise the "Who I Am" section and add any personal workflow preferences.*