Your CLAUDE.md is probably broken — 5 silent failure patterns and how to fix them

CLAUDE.md is the most important file in your Claude Code setup. It's also the easiest to get silently wrong. Here's the uncomfortable truth: Claude actively filters what it follows from your CLAUDE.md — it doesn't treat everything as a permanent command. Most production CLAUDE.md files are broken and developers don't know it. TL;DR Claude has an instruction budget of ~100–150 slots after its own system prompt Files over 60 lines cause Claude to silently ignore rules mid-session "Never do X" rules without alternatives cause Claude to freeze and ask permission @file embeds burn context on every session — reference instead CLAUDE.md is advisory (80% compliance) — hooks are deterministic (100%) The budget problem nobody talks about Claude Code injects a system reminder above your instructions: "This context may or may not be relevant to your tasks." Claude actively decides which rules to follow per turn. Frontier models follow roughly 150–200 instructions before compliance drops. Claude Co