# The Claude Code playbook

## A working routine

Brief the outcome, audience, constraints and evidence of success. Explore the existing project. Plan substantial or unclear work; tiny, obvious changes can be direct. Build one coherent slice, check its behaviour and review the diff. Save a known good point in version control. Agree separately when to publish.

This sequence is Pow Digital's practical adaptation. It should become shorter when the task is simpler.

## Choose the right extension

- CLAUDE.md: concise recurring project context, commands and conventions. It is guidance, not an enforced permission boundary.
- Skills: reusable procedures in folders with SKILL.md. Existing custom command files continue to work; commands and skills are not competing systems.
- Subagents: bounded tasks in separate contexts, useful for investigation or review. Parallel work can increase usage and coordination.
- Hooks: configured actions at lifecycle events. Review scripts and test the trigger, result and failure case.
- MCP: access to external tools or data. Check the server, permissions and authentication.
- Plugins: packages of extensions. Choose a specific package for a concrete job.

## Recovery

When a session keeps guessing, supply a failing example and expected behaviour. When context grows unwieldy, inspect /context and use /compact with focus instructions, or start fresh with a short handoff. Stop repeating a failed approach without new evidence.

Checkpoints can restore tracked file edits and conversation. They do not undo every shell command, database change or external action. Use Git for durable version history.

## How to use Shan's repository

[Claude Code Best Practice](https://github.com/shanraisshan/claude-code-best-practice) is a community-maintained library of examples and advice. Study its working patterns; verify product behaviour in official documentation. Its always-plan advice and roughly 40% context heuristic should not be treated as universal rules. Popularity is not a security or quality audit.

[Snapshot reviewed](https://github.com/shanraisshan/claude-code-best-practice/tree/f7b4ce4de47fadeb00e59e8967e48af2b72d5684)

## Sources

- [Best practices](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/best-practices)
- [Project memory](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/memory)
- [Skills](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/skills)
- [Subagents](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/sub-agents)
- [Hooks](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/hooks-guide)
- [MCP](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/mcp)
- [Checkpointing](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/checkpointing)

## Reusable files

The hub includes task-brief.md, review-prompt.md and CLAUDE-starter.md in md_downloads/. They are original Pow Digital starting points. Replace placeholders and review the instructions before use.

Reviewed 7 September 2026. This is an editorial snapshot, not a live feed. Product availability can vary by version, platform, account and configuration.