The claude-md-builder skill: give Claude a memory for your project

Claude starts every session blank. You re-explain what the project is, re-state the rules you already gave it yesterday, and then watch it add a second page you didn't ask for, again. A CLAUDE.md file fixes that. It sits in the project folder and gets read at the start of every session in that folder.

claude-md-builder writes one for you. It looks at the folder, asks six questions one at a time, cuts your answers down, and saves the file. Short is the whole point. Every line competes for attention with every other line, so a file that reads like a diary buries the three rules that actually change what Claude does.

It's one of the 55 free skills in our freeskills repo, and it's the one that stops you repeating yourself for the rest of the project.

Three lines: clone, make the folder, copy. The skill is just a folder with instructions inside it.

Now restart Claude Code, or open a fresh session. Setup is done. There's nothing to configure and no key to paste anywhere.

Open Claude Code inside your project folder and type /claude-md-builder. It confirms where it is, describes the project back to you in one line to check it got it right, and tells you if a CLAUDE.md already exists. It never quietly overwrites one. If a file is there, it reads it and shows you what it's keeping.

Then it asks six questions, one at a time: what the project is, who it's for and the one thing it has to do, the rules to follow every time, what it should never do, where the real files live, and how you want to be talked to. Short answers are fine. If one is vague it asks a single sharpening question, then moves on.

Before writing, it cuts. Rules Claude would follow anyway get dropped, so do to-do items and anything that stops being true next month. It tells you what it cut and why. A good first result is under 40 lines and reads like your own words, not like a policy document.

The best rules come from mistakes that already happened. Bring those to the interview instead of inventing rules in advance.

If your file has crept past a screenful, the important lines are getting quieter. Ask for the cut explicitly.

A memory file you can't verify is one you won't trust. Test it before you rely on it. Close the session, start a new one in the same folder, and paste this.

Claude should answer from the file with no explaining from you. If it can't, the file is in the wrong folder. Claude reads CLAUDE.md from the folder you started the session in, so check you opened Claude Code inside the project.

Here is what this skill does and why a memory file is worth ten minutes of your night.

1. 1Hook: there's a brand new free Claude skill that takes you from re-explaining your project every single session to Claude knowing your rules the moment you open it.
2. 2Mechanism: you point it at the project folder and it looks at what's in there first, so it can describe your project back to you. Then it asks six questions one at a time, covering what this is, the rules you want followed every time, and the things it should never do. It cuts your answers down to under forty lines and writes them into the project as a file Claude reads at the start of every session.
3. 3Transformation: you stop repeating yourself. The mistake you corrected on Monday doesn't come back on Thursday, and every session starts with Claude already knowing what the project is for.
4. 4Close: it's free and it's one of 55 in the repo. This one gives a single project a memory. If you want the path that runs across all of them, Claude Code Club is $9 a month. Link below.

Tonight, open Claude Code in the project you've been re-explaining, run the skill, then start a fresh session and ask it what your rules are. Ten minutes, and you never type that explanation again.