Seth-Workflow-April-2026/docs/customization.md

Customization Guide

How to adapt this workflow for your own projects.

Start Small

You don't need to adopt everything at once. Here's a recommended progression:

Level 1: Essentials (Start Here)

.claude/rules/
  01-session-discipline.md    # Session start/end protocol
  03-git-workflow.md           # Conventional commits, branches
  09-context-doc-maintenance.md # Keep docs current

Plus the templates:

• CLAUDE.md -- project instructions
• SESSION.md -- AI memory across sessions

This gives you: session continuity, clean git history, and documentation that stays current.

Level 2: Quality

Add:

.claude/rules/
  05-reasoning-patterns.md    # Brainstorm before building, Five Whys
  08-code-quality.md           # Quality checklist, immutability

This gives you: better architectural decisions, fewer bugs, and consistent code quality.

Level 3: Sophisticated AI Assistance

Add:

.claude/rules/
  02-authority-hierarchy.md    # What overrides what
  04-proactive-steering.md     # AI as co-pilot, not passive tool
  06-context-management.md     # Token budgets, session management

This gives you: an AI assistant that actively steers the project, manages its own context, and follows a clear authority hierarchy.

Level 4: Security Hardening

Add:

.claude/rules/
  07-security-hardening.md     # Deny lists, injection guards

Plus the pre-push hook:

cp hooks/check-secrets-before-push.sh ~/.config/git/check-secrets-before-push.sh

This gives you: secret scanning, file access restrictions, and prompt injection awareness.

Customizing Individual Rules

Session Discipline (01)

Adapt: The session wrap-up questions. Your team might have different things to check at session end. The handoff document format might need project-specific sections.

Don't remove: The principle of persisting decisions to files. This is the foundation of session continuity.

Git Workflow (03)

Adapt: Branch naming conventions to match your team's standard. Commit types if you use a different convention than conventional commits.

Don't remove: Frequent commits and conventional format. These create searchable, revertible history.

Proactive Steering (04)

Adapt: The phase names (IDEATION, PLANNING, etc.) to match your team's vocabulary. The auto-invoke tool signals to match your toolchain.

Don't remove: The principle of ending every response with direction. This prevents "what now?" dead ends.

Reasoning Patterns (05)

Adapt: The documentation lookup tiers to match your documentation tools. The Adopt/Extend/Compose/Build thresholds based on your project's tolerance for dependencies.

Don't remove: Clarification before assumption and brainstorm before building. These prevent wasted work.

Context Management (06)

Adapt: The token budget numbers based on your AI assistant's context window. The thinking mode names to match your tool's syntax.

Don't remove: The execution readiness check. Starting 3+ tasks at high context usage compounds errors.

Security (07)

Adapt: The deny list patterns to match your infrastructure. Add paths specific to your cloud provider, secrets manager, etc.

Don't remove: The prompt injection guardrails. External content is always untrusted input.

Adding Project-Specific Rules

Create additional rules in .claude/rules/ with higher numbers:

.claude/rules/
  10-api-conventions.md        # Your API design standards
  11-testing-requirements.md   # Your testing requirements
  12-deployment-process.md     # Your deployment workflow

Higher numbers load after lower numbers. Project-specific rules can reference the base rules:

# API Conventions

In addition to the quality standards in `08-code-quality.md`:

- All endpoints must return JSON
- All errors must use RFC 7807 format
- All endpoints must have OpenAPI documentation

Removing Rules

If a rule doesn't fit your workflow, simply don't copy it to .claude/rules/. The remaining rules continue to work independently.

Caveat: If you remove 02-authority-hierarchy.md, be aware that conflicts between rules, plugins, and defaults won't have a clear resolution order. Consider keeping it even if simplified.

Team Adoption

For teams adopting this workflow:

1. Start with Level 1 across all projects
2. Standardize CLAUDE.md format so any team member's AI assistant can pick up any project
3. Share SESSION.md conventions so session memories are consistently structured
4. Discuss which rules to add based on the team's pain points
5. Customize rule content to match team conventions, but keep the rule structure

The templates in templates/ are starting points. Evolve them as your team discovers what works.

Measuring Success

You'll know the workflow is working when:

• New sessions start productive immediately (no "where was I?")
• Decisions made last week are documented and discoverable
• The AI suggests next steps you agree with (proactive steering is calibrated)
• No secrets are committed (security rules are working)
• Git history tells a clear story (conventional commits + frequent commits)
• Context doesn't degrade in long sessions (context management is working)