Two Claude Code Skills for Managing CLAUDE.md Configuration

A developer has created two Claude Code skills to address the growing complexity of CLAUDE.md configuration files. The tools aim to replace manual tweaking with automated, research-backed approaches.

The Problem with Long CLAUDE.md Files

The source notes that CLAUDE.md files are loaded into context on every single message. Since frontier models reliably follow about 150–200 total instruction slots, and the system prompt already uses approximately 50, a 300-line CLAUDE.md in a project actively degrades how well Claude follows all rules.

The Solution: Two Reusable Skills

The developer distilled research from official Anthropic docs, engineering blogs, community configs, and academic papers on agent instruction design into two skills:

/cc-init for New/Empty Projects

• Creates a lean CLAUDE.md (typically 20–40 lines)
• Generates permissions.deny for .env, secrets, and destructive commands
• Adds a formatter hook if it detects one in the project
• Sets cost-optimization defaults (auto-compact at 50% instead of the default 83%)
• Configures Claude to ask questions instead of guessing and use TODOs where it can't verify

This functions as an opinionated /init command.

/cc-optimize for Existing Projects

• Inventories every config file (CLAUDE.md, settings.json, hooks, MCP, skills)
• Checks for bloat, missing hooks, hardcoded secrets, and deprecated settings
• Catches instructions that should be deterministic hooks instead
• Groups findings as must fix / should fix / nice to have
• Asks before changing anything

The skills have no plugin marketplace or dependencies. The developer notes they don't try to cover everything and welcomes issues and PRs for missing functionality.

The repository is available at: https://github.com/MichaelvanLaar/claude-code-config-skills