I’ve been using Claude Code as my primary tool for three months. Not as an occasional assistant — as part of the daily workflow. Here’s what I learned.

What changed from the first month

The first month I used it like a powerful autocomplete. I’d ask for code, review it, adjust it. Reasonable productivity but not spectacular.

The change came when I started working with tasks, not questions. Instead of “write a function that does X,” I started describing the full objective: “implement the /users/:id endpoint with permission validation, standard error handling, and tests.” The difference is substantial — Claude can maintain the context of a complete task much better than fragmented questions.

What I kept: CLAUDE.md as memory

The CLAUDE.md file in the project root is the most valuable thing I adopted. It includes:

  • Exact project stack (versions, libraries)
  • Code conventions (naming, folder structure)
  • Domain-specific rules (“no any in TypeScript”, “errors go in { code, message } format”)
  • Business context Claude can’t infer from code

Without this, every session started from scratch. With it, Claude has the context it needs to make correct decisions without asking me every time.

What I discovered: hooks are powerful

Claude Code hooks (pre-tool, post-tool) let you automate actions around tools. I use them to: log which files get modified, run the linter automatically after each Write, and alert if it tries to modify files outside the allowed scope.

This turns Claude Code from “agent that executes what you ask” to “agent with automatic guardrails.”

The real limit: context window

After three months, the main limit isn’t response quality — it’s the context window. In large projects, the context fills up and quality drops. The solution isn’t to force more context, it’s to work in shorter sessions with more specific tasks. One session = one well-defined task.