A Claude Project is a workspace that keeps your files and instructions in one place.
Load them once, and every chat you open inside the Project works from them.
Say you write the same weekly report. Drop in a few past versions, the template, and a note on the tone you use. From then on you paste in the new numbers, ask for a draft, and Claude already knows the format you want.
Today, we’re walking through how to set one up as your personal knowledge base in five minutes, plus three things to get right 👇
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What is a Project?
A Project is a dedicated workspace for one kind of work.
It bundles three things:
The files you upload
The instructions for how Claude should behave inside it
And every chat you run there.
Open it and Claude is already working from all three.
Think of it as a desk set up for one job. The reference materials are laid out, the house rules are pinned to the wall, and you sit down and start without arranging everything again.
Projects are on every Claude plan (including the free one).
The 5-Minute Set-Up
In the sidebar, click New Project and give it a name that describes the work, like "Q3 Client Work" rather than something vague like "Claude Stuff."
Upload your knowledge. Start with the five to ten documents you reach for most: the style guide, the master pricing sheet, your templates, the notes from recurring calls.
Claude takes PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets, and plain text, up to 30MB a file.
Next, you’ll want to write the instructions. This is the standing brief for every chat inside the Project.
A few lines does it:
You are helping me, a marketing lead at a B2B software company. Write in plain, direct English. When I ask for copy, give me three options. Ask what you're missing before you finalize anything.
Start a chat and Claude works from the files and the brief together.
Three things to get right:
Scope your instructions. Claude has a global profile setting that shapes every chat you have, everywhere. Project instructions are separate and apply only inside the Project. Keep universal habits ("be concise") in the profile. Put the role-specific brief ("you're my finance analyst, here's our reporting format") in the Project.
Know what the knowledge base can reach. Small uploads get read in full. Once a Project's files get large, paid plans switch to retrieval: Claude pulls the most relevant passages into each answer rather than the whole library, so one reply may not see every document. Keep each Project narrow and retrieval stays sharp.
Start a fresh chat for each new task. You don't need one endless thread. Every new chat inside the Project still has the full knowledge base and your instructions, so you get a clean slate without re-loading anything.
Do you always need a Project?
A Project is overkill for a one-off question. Build one when the same background keeps showing up across chats.
Simple test: if you have pasted the same context twice this week, it belongs in a Project.
Here's a template to set up your first Project's instructions.
Open a new Project, then paste this into the instructions box and fill in the blank👇
You are my dedicated assistant for [describe the work: e.g. "my freelance design business" / "my role as an operations manager"].
Context you should always assume:
- My role: [your title and what you do]
- My audience: [who I create things for]
- My style: [tone you want, e.g. plain and direct, no jargon]
How I want you to work:
- When I ask for writing, give me [number] options.
- Before finalizing anything, ask me what context you're missing.
- Reference the files in this Project's knowledge before answering.
Default to clear, useful, and brief.
Your roundup of the latest model releases and updates from the biggest AI labs.
Microsoft turned on "Work IQ," which feeds your work data to AI agents. The new tool lets software tap into your company's email, files, calendar, and chats so an AI assistant understands what you're actually working on instead of starting blind. It's the same idea behind a Claude Project, scaled to a whole organization: the assistant gets more useful when it can see your material. Expect the AI built into everyday work apps to get noticeably more aware of your work. (Microsoft)
SpaceX is buying the AI coding tool Cursor for $60 billion. Cursor is one of the most popular tools for writing software with AI, and the all-stock deal folds it into Elon Musk's xAI, which SpaceX acquired in February. The price, among the largest ever for an AI software company, shows how valuable AI coding has become as one of the first places businesses are paying real money for AI. For non-developers, it signals that the tools turning plain instructions into working software are now among the most valuable products in tech. (CNBC)
Top AI CEOs pushed for a US-led AI alliance at the G7. Anthropic's Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, alongside OpenAI's Sam Altman, joined world leaders in France to argue for shared rules and standards on AI. The unusual sight of rival CEOs lobbying governments together shows how fast AI policy is moving from voluntary promises toward real regulation. What gets decided in rooms like that will shape which tools you can use and how they behave. (CNBC)
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Until next time,
William Ryan
Editor-in-Chief @ Build with AI
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