The workflow that survives contact with week three

You got Claude Code running. It builds things. But every session feels like a gamble: sometimes it nails the feature, sometimes it rewrites half your app to fix a typo. You want the version of this that feels less like luck and more like a routine. Here is that routine.

Start with a CLAUDE.md file

Claude Code reads a file called CLAUDE.md at the start of every session if you have one in your project folder. Think of it as the instructions you'd leave for a new hire on day one. Most people either skip this or write a novel. Neither works. Three lines matter more than the rest:

• What this app does. One sentence. "This is a habit tracker for one user, no logins."
• What not to touch. Name the files or features that are working and off-limits unless you ask directly.
• How to ask before big changes. Tell it to explain a plan before deleting files, changing the database, or rewriting more than one file at a time.

Everything else in CLAUDE.md is nice to have. Those three lines are what stop a small ask from becoming a full rebuild.

One feature per session, not one giant prompt

The instinct when you don't code is to write a huge prompt covering everything you want, hit enter, and hope. This is where most sessions go wrong. A long prompt gives the AI a lot of room to guess, and guesses compound. By the fifth step it's building on a wrong assumption from step two.

Pick one feature. Ask for it. Check it works. Then move to the next one. A session that adds "a button that exports your data as a CSV file" will go better than a session that asks for exports, sharing, and a redesign in one breath.

Save points before anything risky

A save point is a snapshot of your project at a working moment, so you can go back to it if the next change breaks things. What this looks like depends on your tool:

• Claude Code / Cursor: this is usually a git commit. Git is the system that tracks every change to your files. A commit is one saved snapshot in that history. If you're not comfortable with git commands, ask the AI to make the commit for you and describe what changed in one line.
• Lovable / Bolt: these tools usually save versions automatically as you go, and show you a history you can click back through.
• Plyo: every version is saved automatically, and undo is one click, so you don't need to remember to do this manually.

Whatever tool you use, make the save point before you ask for anything that touches more than one file, changes how data is stored, or removes something.

When to abandon a confused session

You'll know a session has gone bad before you think you do. The signs: it apologizes twice in a row, it "fixes" something and breaks something else, or it starts explaining what it's about to do in more words than the actual change needs. People tend to keep pushing here, adding one more correction, then another. That's usually the wrong move.

The moment a session gets confused, stop and start fresh. Don't wait for the third failed fix. A new session, reading your CLAUDE.md file and looking at your last save point, will almost always solve the problem faster than continuing to correct a session that's lost the thread.

A week on one small app, worked example

Six sessions, one abandoned, no giant prompts, no full rebuilds. That's the pace this routine is meant to produce.