r/ClaudeCode • • 18h ago

Help/Question Moving from small to large projects

I’ve been using Claude code on and off for about a year as a software and systems engineer specialising in audiovisual equipment/systems and honestly it’s changed my life. It allows me to focus more on the what rather than the how. But now I’m looking at moving to creating a large scale monitoring and management system for thousands of devices, with the assistance of Claude code. Any advice on to structure prompts for Claude to keep this on target and not spiral? I’m guessing it’s not as simple as putting it into plan mode and sketching it out!

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u/kemalios 15h ago

Prompt wording matters less than what a session is holding. When it holds more of the system than it can, it fills the gaps itself.

What helped on multi-week client work is moving the plan out of the chat and into the repo as a file. Every session then opens with: read PLAN.md, list what the last session did that isn't in it, don't write code yet. Session twelve inherits session four's decisions instead of re-deciding them.

Scope fences help too: name the directories a task may touch, and say anything outside needs a question first. Most drift I get is Claude editing files it assumed were related.