CLAUDE.md rules file balloons 11× in 5 weeks, to 50,702 characters

The file started as a handover note: Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md in full at the start of every conversation, so it is where a user writes "always do this" instructions. The author added a section each time something went wrong—why the rule was needed, when it happened, what not to do—and each entry looked indispensable on its own, because removing it risked repeating the same failure.

That incremental, locally rational habit produced the growth: 4,653 characters on 2026-08-14 became 50,702 characters on September 18, and the "⚠️" marks used to flag important points went from 1 to 203. The author's own reading is that a memo where everything is flagged leaves no way to tell what is important, so each addition may have weakened the rest.

The attempted fix was to separate rules that only apply "when X" into separate procedure files read only in those situations. But the growth did not stop: the file was 26,419 characters when that decision was made and 38,527 characters two days later. The details of how 51,598 characters were eventually cut to 7,016—and whether it has stayed down—are covered in a follow-up piece.