Heft · Steward workshops

Steward workshops · 2 of 3

Give Claude your place

Two hours in Claude Code. You leave with a folder of your place's knowledge that
Claude reads every session, a glossary, and one record rescued from a PDF or
dashboard.

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What you'll leave with

• A folder for your place, with a note Claude reads at the start of every session
• A glossary of the names and terms your place uses
• One record turned into a table Claude can work with, with its source written down

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Why a folder

Every Claude session starts with no memory of the last one. Whatever it needs to
know about your place has to be written down where it can read it.

That folder becomes your place's memory. You own it, and anyone you work with
can read it.

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Three ways to run Claude Code

The desktop app also has a Cowork tab for documents and research without a
folder of files. We use the Code tab because it works on a folder of plain
files you own. Skills you add in Cowork come from Customize, not from that
folder.

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Setup

1. Open the Claude desktop app and choose the Code tab
2. Choose Local
3. Pick or make a folder named after your reserve
4. Copy in the documents from workshop 1
5. Find the usage ring, which shows how much of your plan's allowance is left;
   Settings → Usage has the detail

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Words we use

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Working safely

• Give Claude its own folder, and back up anything you can't replace
• Claude asks before it changes a file. You can choose how much it asks in the
  mode menu, from asking every time to planning without changing anything.
• Say exactly what to remove: "delete this section, keep the file"
• Press Esc to stop Claude mid-task. Press Esc twice to go back to an
  earlier point; that undoes file edits but not commands Claude ran.

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Slash commands

Type / and a list appears. The ones you'll use most:

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Keep conversations short

Claude does worse as a conversation fills up. /context shows how full it is.

• Use /clear between unrelated tasks
• If you've corrected Claude twice and it's still wrong, /clear and ask again
  more clearly
• Use /compact when you need to keep going on one long task

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CLAUDE.md: the note Claude reads first

A file called CLAUDE.md in your folder is read at the start of every session.
Put the things Claude should never have to ask again:

• What the place is and who you are
• Rules: cite a source for every figure, use British spelling
• Where the important files are

Exercise, 10 minutes: ask Claude to interview you and write your CLAUDE.md.

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This reserve, or everything you do

Put facts about the place in the reserve's folder, and personal habits such as
British spelling in your home folder. Claude reads both, and when they disagree
the reserve's folder wins. Ask Claude which one to use and it will put things in
the right place.

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Claude and other agents

Other agents, such as OpenAI's Codex or Cursor, read their instructions from a file
called AGENTS.md. Claude Code reads AGENTS.md too when your folder has no
CLAUDE.md. If your team uses more than one agent, ask Claude to keep your
instructions in AGENTS.md so every agent reads the same file.

Skills follow an open format (agentskills.io), so other agents can use them. Each
agent looks in its own folder; Claude Code looks in .claude/skills/.

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Skills in Claude Code

A skill is a folder with a file called SKILL.md inside. Claude finds skills in
two places:

• .claude/skills/ inside your reserve's folder, for this place only
• ~/.claude/skills/ in your home folder, for everything you do

You rarely need to open these folders. Ask Claude instead:

Install the skill in this zip file for this reserve only.

Claude notices new and changed skills straight away.

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Installing published skills

People publish skills in bundles called plugins, listed in marketplaces.

In the desktop app, press +, choose Plugins, search and install. Install
Anthropic's skill-creator now; workshop 3 uses it.

In the terminal the same thing is a command:

/plugin install skill-creator@claude-plugins-official

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Running a skill

Two ways:

• Type its name as a command: /grilling or /okf
• Ask for the task in plain words. Claude reads each skill's description and uses
  the one that matches.

Exercise, 10 minutes: install the skills we hand out today and run /grilling
on something small.

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A knowledge folder for your place

We keep knowledge as plain text files, one fact or topic per file, in a format
called OKF.

• Each file starts with a short header saying what kind of thing it is
• index.md lists what's in the folder
• log.md records what changed and when

Plain text files open in any editor, so you never need a particular app to read
them.

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Build your glossary

Your place has its own words: beach names, site codes, designations, committees.
When you and Claude use the same words, your requests get shorter and Claude
makes fewer mistakes.

Exercise, 20 minutes: "Interview me about the names, places, designations and
roles we use here. Write a glossary file, one entry per term, with a source for
each."

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Get records out of PDFs and dashboards

Claude works best on text and tables. Much of what reserves know is stuck in
annual PDF reports, old spreadsheets and dashboards with no download button.

Get the records out first. Every analysis, map and letter later depends on them.

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An example: one outfall, one year

South West Water's spill logs for the Croyde sea outfall, joined into one table:
1,252.5 hours of spilling in 2025, and 30.8 of those in the bathing season.

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Plan before you change files

For a job you can't describe in one sentence, switch to Plan in the mode menu
first. Claude reads the files and proposes a plan without changing anything. Read
the plan, correct it, then let it work.

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Exercise: rescue one record (25 minutes)

Pick one record from your list, and start in Plan mode.

Turn this into a table saved as a CSV file (a plain spreadsheet file).
Then write a short file in the knowledge folder saying where the data
came from, what each column means and what's missing.

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Check the numbers

• Open the source and check three rows yourself, picked at random
• Ask for a second opinion from a fresh worker:

Use a subagent to check every figure in this table against the original file.
List only the figures that don't match.

A checker told to find problems will find some, so ask it for mismatches only.

A subagent starts a fresh conversation, so it checks the table without carrying
over the first conversation's assumptions.

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Before workshop 3

• Add five facts to your knowledge folder, each with a source
• Bring one big job, something that will take weeks
• Note one check you'd like done every morning or every week

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Sources

• Claude Code desktop: code.claude.com/docs/en/desktop-quickstart
• Skills: code.claude.com/docs/en/skills
• Plugins: code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins/install
• CLAUDE.md and memory: code.claude.com/docs/en/memory
• Spill logs: South West Water storm overflow records for SBB00332, 2025