How to give Claude rules it sticks to (in 10 minutes)

Picture a new, very capable colleague. Writes fast, doesn’t complain, works through the night. It has one flaw: when it doesn’t know something, it guesses — instead of asking. That colleague is Claude (an AI assistant that can write code for you).

The fix is simple. You give it a written set of rules to stick to. And it sticks to them. In this guide you’ll do it step by step. You don’t need to know how to program.

Why give the AI rules at all

Without rules, Claude guesses. And guessing costs: more errors, more fixes, sometimes something broken in a place you never wanted touched.

Rules are like an onboarding for a new person at the company. You say it once: “here we don’t deploy anything without your approval”, “always make a copy before you change data”, “show the plan first, then act”. From then on you don’t have to repeat it with every task. It watches over that for you.

Fewer errors. Less guessing. Fewer surprises. That’s what you gain in ten minutes.

Step 1 — Download the The Craft pack

On this site you’ll find a Download button. You click it — and get a .zip file (a compressed pack with many files inside).

It’s free. No sign-up, no email, no catches. Inside are all the rules for building apps with AI, written so that Claude understands them.

Step 2 — Unpack it in your project (the folder appears by itself)

Open your project folder (that’s simply a directory on your computer where your app lives). Unpack the .zip there (right-click, “Extract”) — inside there’s already a ready docs/rules/ folder, so everything lands in place by itself. You don’t have to create or move anything.

That’s it. Your rules now sit in docs/rules/, ready to use. Want to read them comfortably? Open docs/rules/index.html (double-click) — you get a neat reader with a PL/EN switch.

Step 3 — Tell Claude to stick to them

Now the most important moment. Open Claude (e.g. Claude Code — the version that works in the terminal, right inside your project folder, so it sees its files) and paste it one of the ready prompts below. A prompt is simply a message you write to the AI.

To start — so Claude learns the rules:

Read all the files in the docs/rules/ folder.
These are the rules you must stick to in this project.
Confirm briefly that you accept them, and list the 3 most important.

When you hand it a specific task, remind it of the rules:

Do [DESCRIBE WHAT YOU NEED HERE].
Stick to the rules in docs/rules/.
Show me the plan first, before you change anything. Act only after my “ok”.

And when you want to be sure nothing was quietly guessed:

Before you call it done: check that you did it in line with docs/rules/.
Show me proof it works — don’t write “it probably works”.
If you assumed anything for me, say so outright.

Copy, paste, send. From now on Claude plays by your rules.

A small tip at the end

Rules work best when you remind Claude of them at the start of a new conversation. The AI doesn’t remember previous sessions the way a human does. One sentence — “stick to the rules in docs/rules/” — and you’re on the same page again.

In short

Download the free The Craft pack (.zip) and unpack it at the root of your project — the docs/rules/ folder is already inside, so it drops into place by itself.
Tell Claude to read those rules and stick to them — the ready prompts are above, just copy them.
Result: fewer errors and less guessing, because the AI has clear rules instead of guessing what you mean.