Conditional importance blocks improve CLAUDE.md instruction adherence¶
Insight: Wrapping CLAUDE.md sections in conditional blocks with specific contexts (e.g., <important if="you are writing or modifying tests">) significantly improves instruction adherence compared to a single large document. Explicit conditions signal relevance more effectively than implicit association.
Detail: Best practice: keep conditions narrow to specific domains (testing, deployment) rather than broad. Universal context (architecture, tech stack, project identity) remains always-visible. An automation tool ('improve-claude-md' skill) can restructure files by identifying foundational content and adding conditional blocks around domain-specific sections.