Anthropic rewrites its context engineering rules for Claude 5
In a new blog post, Anthropic's Tariq Shihipar lays out how context prep has shifted for the Claude 5 generation and which older recommendations no longer hold. The new guidance:
• Trust the model's judgment over rigid rules. An early Claude Code system prompt banned multi-line comments; the instruction now just asks it to match the surrounding style. • Design a tool's interface and expressive parameters instead of feeding it usage examples. • Use progressive disclosure: some tools load only after a ToolSearch query. • Auto-memory, which Claude saves on its own, replaces the CLAUDE.md memory file.
Anthropic also shipped a claude doctor command to clean up prompts, skills, and CLAUDE.md files.
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