Shayan Rais
e2fd7bdc4a
Adopt YY-M-D naming scheme (year-month-date, month as numeric) for chronological sortability. Update image references in the 13-tips post. Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
151 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
151 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
# How I Use Claude Code — 13 Tips from Boris Cherny
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A summary of setup tips shared by Boris Cherny ([@bcherny](https://x.com/bcherny)), creator of Claude Code, on January 3, 2026.
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<table width="100%">
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<tr>
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<td><a href="../">← Back to Claude Code Best Practice</a></td>
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<td align="right"><img src="../!/claude-jumping.svg" alt="Claude" width="60" /></td>
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</tr>
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</table>
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---
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## Context
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Boris shared his personal Claude Code setup, noting it's "surprisingly vanilla" — Claude Code works great out of the box, so he doesn't customize it much. There's no one correct way to use it: the team intentionally builds it so you can use, customize, and hack it however you like. Each person on the Claude Code team uses it very differently.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179832300581177"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/0.png" alt="Boris Cherny intro tweet" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 1/ Run 5 Claudes in Parallel
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Run 5 Claudes in parallel in your terminal. Number your tabs 1–5, and use system notifications to know when a Claude needs input.
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See: [Terminal Setup Docs](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/terminal)
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179833990885678"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/1.png" alt="Run 5 Claudes in parallel" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 2/ Use claude.ai/code for Even More Parallelism
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Run 5–10 Claudes on claude.ai/code in parallel with your local Claudes. Hand off local sessions to web sessions using `claude.ai/code`, manually kick off sessions in Chrome, and teleport back and forth.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179836704600237"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/2.png" alt="claude.ai/code parallelism" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 3/ Use Opus with Thinking for Everything
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Use Opus 4.5 with thinking for everything. It's the best coding model Boris has ever used — even though it's bigger and slower than Sonnet, since you have to steer it less and it's better at tool use, it is almost always faster than using a smaller model in the end.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179838864666847"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/3.png" alt="Opus with thinking" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 4/ Share a Single CLAUDE.md with Your Team
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Share a single `CLAUDE.md` for the repo. Check it into git, and have the whole team contribute multiple times a week. Anytime Claude does something incorrectly, add it to the `CLAUDE.md` so Claude knows not to do it next time.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179840848597422"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/4.png" alt="Shared CLAUDE.md" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 5/ Tag @claude on PRs to Update CLAUDE.md
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During code review, tag `@claude` on your coworkers' PRs to add something to the `CLAUDE.md` as part of the PR. Use the Claude Code GitHub action ([install-@hub-action](https://github.com/apps/claude)) for this — it's Boris's version of Compounding Engineering.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179842928947333"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/5.png" alt="Tag @claude on PRs" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 6/ Start Most Sessions in Plan Mode
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Start most sessions in Plan mode (shift+tab twice). If the goal is to write a Pull Request, use Plan mode and go back and forth with Claude until you like its plan. From there, switch into auto-accept edits mode and Claude can usually 1-shot it. A good plan is really important.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179845336527000"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/6.png" alt="Plan mode" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 7/ Use Slash Commands for Inner Loop Workflows
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Use slash commands for every "inner loop" workflow that you do many times a day. This saves you from repeated prompting, and makes it so Claude can use these workflows too. Commands are checked into git and live in `.claude/commands/`.
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Example: `/commit-push-pr` — Commit, push, and open a PR.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179847949500714"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/7.png" alt="Slash commands" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 8/ Use Subagents to Automate Common Workflows
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Use a few subagents regularly: `code-simplifier` simplifies the code after Claude is done working, `verify-app` has detailed instructions for testing Claude Code end to end, and so on. Think of subagents as automating the most common workflows — similar to slash commands.
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Subagents live in `.claude/agents/`.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179850139000872"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/8.png" alt="Subagents" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 9/ Use a PostToolUse Hook to Auto-Format Code
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Use a `PostToolUse` hook to format Claude's code. Claude usually generates well-formatted code out of the box, and the hook handles the last 10% to avoid formatting errors in CI later.
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```json
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"PostToolUse": [
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{
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"matcher": "Write|Edit",
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"hooks": [
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{
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"type": "command",
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"command": "bun run format || true"
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}
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]
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}
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]
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```
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179852047335529"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/9.png" alt="PostToolUse hook for formatting" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 10/ Pre-allow Permissions Instead of --dangerously-skip-permissions
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Don't use `--dangerously-skip-permissions`. Instead, use `/permissions` to pre-allow common bash commands that you know are safe in your environment, to avoid unnecessary permission prompts. Most of these are checked into `.claude/settings.json` and shared with the team.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179854077407667"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/10.png" alt="Pre-allow permissions" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 11/ Let Claude Use All Your Tools via MCP
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Claude Code uses all your tools. It often searches and posts to Slack (via the MCP server), runs BigQuery queries to answer analytics questions (using `bq` CLI), grabs error logs from Sentry, etc. The Slack MCP configuration is checked into `.mcp.json` and shared with the team.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179856266789204"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/11.png" alt="MCP tools" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 12/ Verify Long-Running Tasks with Background Agents
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For very long-running tasks, either (a) prompt Claude to verify its work with a background agent when it's done, (b) use an agent Stop hook to do that more deterministically, or (c) use the ralph-wiggum plugin (originally dreamt up by @GeoffreyHuntley).
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179858435281082"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/12.png" alt="Long-running tasks verification" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## 13/ Give Claude a Way to Verify Its Work
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Probably the most important thing to get great results out of Claude Code — give Claude a way to verify its work. If Claude has that feedback loop, it will 2–3x the quality of the final result.
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Claude tests every single change Boris lands.
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<a href="https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179861115511237"><img src="assets/boris-26-1-3/13.png" alt="Give Claude a way to verify" width="50%" /></a>
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---
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## Sources
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- [Boris Cherny (@bcherny) on X — January 3, 2026](https://x.com/bcherny/status/2007179832300581177)
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