My Claude Code Usage Best Practices and Recommendations

June 13th, 2025

This post shares my collection of practical recommendations and principles for using Claude Code. For more details and the full source code, check out my repository:

Source code: github.com/NikiforovAll/claude-code-rules

Practical Recommendations

Here is my list of practical recommendations for using Claude Code:

Planning

  • Ask Claude to brainstorm ideas and iterate on them. Later, these ideas can be used as grounding context for your prompts.
  • plan mode vs auto-accept mode vs edit mode:
    • Verify what is about to be performed using plan mode.
    • Once verified, proceed with auto-accept mode.
    • Step-by-step mode is the default mode with no auto-accept.
  • Workflows:
    • a. Explore, plan, code, commit.
    • b. Write tests, commit; code, iterate, commit.
    • c. Write code, screenshot results, iterate.
  • Ask “think hard” to trigger deep thinking:
    • “think” < “think hard” < “think harder” < “ultrathink”

AI Task-Based Development

  • Write a plan to an external source (e.g., file - plan.md) and use it as a checklist.
  • plan.prompt.md - use an external file as memory for task management and planning.

I’ve created a set of commands to help with AI task-based development:

  • Use /create-prd to create a Product Requirements Document (PRD) based on user input.
  • Use /generate-tasks to create a task list from the PRD.
  • Use /process-task-list to manage and track task progress.

Project structure looks like this:

tree -a
# .
# ├── .claude
# │   ├── commands
# │   │   ├── create-prd.md
# │   │   ├── generate-tasks.md
# │   │   └── process-task-list.md
# │   └── settings.local.json
# ├── .mcp.json
# └── README.md

For more details, please refer to source code.

Knowledge Mining / Grounding

  • Use the /init command to initialize the CLAUDE.md file. There’s no required format for CLAUDE.md files. I recommend keeping it concise and human-readable. You can use it to store important information about your project, such as architecture, design decisions, and other relevant details that can help Claude understand your codebase better.
  • CLAUDE.md can open other files like this: @path/to/import. Be careful, as this file is attached every time you submit a prompt.
  • There are two different types:
    • Project memory ./CLAUDE.md - share it with your team.
    • User memory ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md - personal preferences.
  • You can use # <text> to add particular memory to the CLAUDE.md file.

  • Use /memory to edit the memory file directly. It will open the file in your default editor.

  • Codebase Q&A: Use Claude Code to ask questions about your codebase. It can help during onboarding or when you need to understand how something works.
  • Use hints, reference files, provide examples, mention documentation, and provide links.

Miscellaneous

  • Use in “pipe” mode, as Unix philosophy utils: claude -p "" or echo '' | claude -p "".
  • 🗑️ /clear and /compact <specific prompt for aggregation> can be very helpful.
  • 🧠 If you don’t know something about Claude Code, ask it! It’s self-aware.
    • E.g., What kind of tools do you have? Can you perform a web search?

MCP Servers

You can use MCP servers. See claude-code/mcps.

Here is an example of how to setup MCP servers, just create a .mcp.json file in your project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "microsoft.docs.mcp": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://learn.microsoft.com/api/mcp"
    },
    "context7": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@upstash/context7-mcp@latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

🎁 Bonus: Turn Claude Code into an Interactive Tutor with Microsoft Docs & Context7

You can supercharge Claude Code by integrating it with Microsoft Docs and Context7. It can be useful for learning and development tasks.

If you have questions or want to see more, check out the GitHub repository or leave a comment below!

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Oleksii Nikiforov

Pragmatic AI-assisted engineering, with care for the craft.