Claude Code Setup

Claude Code setup

This is the actual Claude Code configuration I run day to day at EltexSoft: a stack-agnostic engineering "spine," platform-specific rule packs that load per file via path globs, a roster of 42 subagents across four stacks, a commit-guard hook plus an auto-formatter, and a repo scaffolder. It's the same setup I describe in 42: The AI Builder's Stack. Take what's useful.

Most people publish a single CLAUDE.md and call it a setup. The thing that actually makes Claude Code reliable is structure: a global file that never changes, rules that load only when Claude reads a file matching their path globs, agents scoped to one job each, and hooks that stop bad commits before they happen. That's what's here.

What's inside

The idea in one paragraph

Two tiers. The global tier (~/.claude/CLAUDE.md + rules/ + agents/ + hooks/) is everything that's true regardless of what you're building. The project tier is a short CLAUDE.md at the repo root that holds only what's specific to that project (§19: stack, quality gate, release pointers, compliance scope). The spine gets prompt-cached and never changes; the project file is the only thing you edit per repo. Rules specialize by path-trigger (a pack loads when Claude reads a file its paths: glob matches); agents specialize by name-override (a repo's .claude/agents/.md shadows the global agent of the same name). Neither scans the repo up front. You configure once, then mostly leave it alone.

Install

Mac/Linux, with Claude Code already installed. Full steps and the per-repo install are in STRUCTURE.md. First install the hook prerequisite jq (guard-commit.sh fails closed without it): brew install jq (macOS) / sudo apt-get install jq (Debian/Ubuntu); the guard also needs git 2.28 or newer. Then:

Then per repo, copy a…