Your CLAUDE.md Is an Instruction File. It Should Be a Failure Log.

CLAUDE.md instructions get followed ~60-70% of the time. Mitchell Hashimoto's AGENTS.md in Ghostty has zero aspirational lines — every entry traces to a real agent mistake. Use the Failure-to-Constraint Decision Tree: dangerous actions go to Hooks, repeatable workflows go to Commands, style/convention goes to CLAUDE.md. Two CLAUDE.md files. Same project. Different philosophies: # ❌ Before: instruction-first CLAUDE.md (typical) # 47 lines of well-meaning rules - "Be careful with production databa