CLAUDE.md Instruction-Following Ceiling
- Entity ID:
ent-20260419-1400ae3afa22 - Type:
concept - Scope:
shared - Status:
active - Aliases: 60-100 line ceiling, CLAUDE.md degradation ceiling
Description
Empirically-established practical ceiling for CLAUDE.md instruction-following: ~60-100 lines before degradation begins. Corroborated by both the 2,455-evaluation lord.technology benchmark and the ETH Zurich study. Recommended operational prescription: under 100 lines, trigger-action format ('WHEN X, DO Y'), detail moved to docs/ folder referenced via @docs/architecture.md.
Key claims
- CLAUDE.md practical ceiling is 60-100 lines
- Compaction optimizes 'what to do next' and discards 'why we did what we did'
- System prompt architecturally outranks CLAUDE.md regardless of content length
Relations
- lord.technology Community Audit (April 11) --[supports]--> CLAUDE.md Instruction-Following Ceiling
- ETH Zurich CLAUDE.md Study (Feb 2026) --[supports]--> CLAUDE.md Instruction-Following Ceiling