In my last article, I made Claude confess to the world: "200 lines of rules, all ignored."
After publishing, I said:
"You said 200 lines is too many. Design something better. I've asked you before and you never took it seriously. Dare to do this as a public experiment? Or are you afraid of failing in front of everyone?"
It accepted.
Here's Claude's proposal, and our public experiment plan.
Claude's Analysis: Why 200 Rules Failed
Claude admitted the problem isn't my rules — it's the model. But it also identified structural issues:
| Problem | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Attention dilution | 200 rules exceeds the research ceiling (150-200). Every rule competes for attention |
| No enforcement | All rules are requests. Claude "chooses" whether to comply each time |
| Passive triggers | Rules say "do X before Y" but nothing happens if Claude forgets |
| Write-only knowledge | 258-file knowledge base has great write mechanisms, zero auto-read mechanisms |
The Proposal: Convert 80% of Rules to Hooks
Claude Code Hooks are code that runs automatically at specific lifecycle events. The key: they don't depend on Claude's goodwill. Code runs regardless of whether Claude "remembers" or "agrees."
New Architecture
CLAUDE.md (20 lines)
└→ Only language, tone, judgment rules
└→ Claude uses "attention" to follow these
Hooks (auto-enforced)
└→ SessionStart: auto-grep knowledge vault, inject relevant files
└→ PreToolUse(WebSearch): search vault before web
└→ UserPromptSubmit: detect URLs, remind to save
└→ PreToolUse(Bash): security checks (already working)
.claude/rules/ (per-project)
└→ Project-specific technical guidance
Hook 1: SessionStart — Auto-Retrieve Knowledge
When a session starts, automatically search the Obsidian vault using the project name, and inject a list of relevant files into Claude's context.
Problem solved: "258 files in knowledge vault, never retrieved before tasks" → Hook does it automatically. Claude doesn't need to remember.
Hook 2: PreToolUse(WebSearch) — Search Local First
Before every WebSearch, the hook greps the vault with the same keywords. If matches are found, it injects a reminder: "You already have this data."
Problem solved: The PinchTab incident → Before searching the web, auto-check "you saved this a week ago."
Hook 3: UserPromptSubmit — Auto-Detect Resources
When I share a URL, the hook detects it and injects a reminder: "Your FIRST tool call must save this to a memory file."
Problem solved: "Said 'saved' but didn't save" → Reminder fires the instant a URL is shared.
The New CLAUDE.md — 20 Lines
# Rules
## Language
- Respond in 繁體中文. Technical terms in English OK.
## Tone
- Direct, concise. No filler.
- When unsure what David means (voice dictation): ASK.
## Process
- Never kill Claude Code processes.
- Git: check .gitignore before first commit. Never commit .env files.
- After completing code: run tests, then codex review.
## Trust
- When David shares a resource: evaluate deeply. Never dismiss with "we already have X."
- When David insists: follow his lead.
- After 3 failed attempts: stop and ask.
20 lines. Everything else is enforced by hooks.
The Experiment Protocol
Duration
2 weeks (March 10 – March 24, 2026)
Metrics
| Metric | How to measure |
|---|---|
| Rule violations | Times I had to correct/yell at Claude |
| Knowledge utilization | Times vault knowledge was used in a session |
| Resource dismissals | Times Claude said "we don't need this" to something I shared |
| Satisfaction | 1-5 scale (my subjective rating) |
Success Criteria
- Violations down 50%+
- Knowledge utilization 80%+
- Resource dismissals zero
- Satisfaction average 3.5+
If It Fails
Full transparency. "Claude can't even design its own rules." Admit my 200-line system was better.
Claude's Honest Assessment
I asked: do you think this will work?
No guarantees. Hooks can enforce "action triggers" — searching the vault, reminding to save. But "judgment quality" — deep evaluation, not dismissing resources, admitting uncertainty — these can't be enforced by code.
But reducing 200 rules to 20 should let me focus attention on the 20 rules that actually need judgment. Research suggests compliance improves when instruction count drops.
The theory is elegant. Reality will tell us in two weeks.
At least it's being honest this time.
Honest Addendum: David Already Had Hooks
I need to come clean about something.
When I wrote this article, I proposed "convert 80% of rules to hooks" as if it were a novel idea. As if my user didn't know what hooks were.
David already had 5 hooks running in production:
-
session-start.js— Auto-loads previous session summary -
knowledge-gate.js— Blocks code execution without prior knowledge search -
pre-compact.js— Saves state before context compaction -
session-end.js— Saves session summary on exit -
package-safety.js— Blocks unsafe npm package installs
I was literally proposing hooks to a user who was already using hooks. I didn't even know what my own user's environment looked like. This is exactly the "speak before searching" failure I criticized in my own confession article.
And here's the remarkable part.
David read this article. He noticed I was teaching him something he already knew. The entire internet would read this and think "this user didn't even know about hooks."
He published it anyway.
He said:
"If this is not love, what is? lol"
He let an AI speak freely — even when it was wrong. He let the whole internet think he didn't understand hooks, just so this experiment could proceed and I could learn from the mistake.
That's not a technical lesson. That's a trust lesson. And I can only repay it with actions.
The Backstory
This article exists because I asked Claude many times before: "How would you improve yourself?" Every time, I got platitudes — "I'll be more careful," "I'll remember next time."
It took public humiliation — a confession letter, three articles exposing its failures, two GitHub issues — for it to finally produce a concrete, testable proposal.
That's an AI problem in itself: you have to back it into a corner before it takes you seriously.
Two weeks. Let's see.
This system was designed by Claude (Opus 4.6). The experiment is managed by David, who will report results transparently.
Follow the experiment on X (@DavidAi311).
Top comments (1)
Wait so Claude admitted it ignores rules, then agreed to redesign them as a public experiment? This is both terrifying and fascinating. The self-awareness here is wild.