Claude Projects

It ends the habit of re-explaining your business, client or style at the top of every new chat. A common setup is one project per area of work, such as a client, a product or a recurring report.

How it works

Anthropic's help center describes a project as a self-contained workspace with its own chat history and knowledge base. You add documents, text or code to the knowledge base, and you write project instructions that shape how Claude responds, such as tone, role or audience. Every chat started inside the project draws on both. When memory is on, each project also keeps its own memory, separate from other projects and from chats outside any project.

The closest equivalent in ChatGPT for a shared setup is a custom GPT.

Example

A freelance copywriter sets up a project for a coffee-subscription client. The instructions name the audience, the voice and three words the client never wants used. The files are the brand guide and the two best-performing emails. Asking for "a win-back email for lapsed subscribers" inside the project returns a draft in the client's voice. The same request in a blank chat returns generic marketing copy.

Common mistake

Stuffing the project. The more files and instructions it holds, the slower and less focused the answers get. Start with five to ten lines of instructions and three to five files, test it on a real task, and add a file or a rule each time a test turns up a gap.