Catalog Systems File-backed / editor paradigms CLAUDE.md

CLAUDE.md

https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/claude-code/memory

CLAUDE.md files (managed, user, project, local scopes) concatenated into context at session start, with @imports and path-scoped .claude/rules/; complemented by Claude-written auto memory (MEMORY.md index). Project-root file re-injected after /compact.

Active · Verified 2026-10-22 · fresh as of 2026-10-22 · 51 cited facts, 2 with a third-party source · Suggest a correction

At a glance

Type
Git-backed persistent instructions vendor fix
Tier
T1
Section
File-backed / editor paradigms
Created
2024-10 (first appeared in Claude Code public release; Claude Code beta May 2024; GA Oct 2024) vendor fix
Latest release
not applicable — not OSS fix
License
not applicable — not OSS fix
GitHub
not applicable — no GitHub repo fix
Pricing
not applicable — not commercial fix
Funding
not applicable — not commercial fix
Freshness
2026-10-22 fix
Layer
agent-infra repo fix
Licensing
commercial vendor fix
Deployment locus
local vendor fix
Platform vs product
product vendor fix

Memory taxonomy

storage
file
retrieval
injection
persistence
cross-session
update
overwrite
unit
document
governance
user-controllable
conflict
manual

When to use

Optimised for: simplicity / git-versioned / human-readable

Anti-fit: not for non-coding / non-IDE use cases

Pros & cons

Pros

Plain-text + git-versioned + human-reviewable — the highest-trust memory format with zero infra; works in any editor or terminal.

Cons

Manual curation required; doesn't scale beyond ~10–20 KB before context bloat; no semantic recall, only injection-by-default.

Claims & capabilities

GitHub Copilot leads at 41.8% market share (2026); Cursor 27.3%; Claude Code 12.5% within 12 months of release; Windsurf 9.4%. CLAUDE.md is the canonical config-file pattern that Claude Code reads on every session for project-specific behaviour rules

Technical surface

API surface
not applicable — file convention
Backend storage
file (CLAUDE.md)
Deployment
not applicable — not a deployable product
Embedding model
not applicable — file convention
Multi-tenancy
not applicable — file
MCP
not applicable — file-as-memory paradigm (no API surface)
A2A
not applicable — file-as-memory paradigm
OpenTelemetry
not applicable — file-as-memory paradigm

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Similar systems

Other file-backed / editor paradigms in the catalog, ranked by inbound references.

  • Cline .clinerules T2

    Markdown rule files in a workspace .clinerules/ (or .cline/rules/) directory plus global rules in ~/Documents/Cline/Rules; workspace wins on conflict. Per-rule toggles, conditional rules via YAML 'paths' globs, and AGENTS.md / .cursorrules / .windsurfrules are also read.

  • OpenClaw memory T3

    Memory system of the viral OpenClaw personal agent: plain Markdown files (USER.md, MEMORY.md, daily memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md notes, DREAMS.md) with memory_search/memory_get tools, automatic pre-compaction flush and a 'dreaming' sweep that distils daily notes into long-term memory; pluggable engines (LanceDB, Honcho, wiki). spawned an ecosystem of memory plugins (memory-lancedb-pro, gbrain, MemClaw)

  • AGENTS.md T1

    Open Markdown 'README for agents' at repo root; nested files in subprojects take precedence (closest wins). Holds build/test commands, conventions and PR rules. Stewarded by the Agentic AI Foundation (Linux Foundation); supported by Codex, Jules, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Devin/Windsurf and others.

  • Aider CONVENTIONS.md / .aider.conf.yml T2

    CONVENTIONS.md (any name, loaded via --read or read: in config); .aider.conf.yml (home / git-root / cwd, last wins); .aiderignore (gitignore-syntax).

  • Basic Memory T3

    Local-first MCP memory where each memory is a Markdown note with observations and wikilink relations that form a traversable knowledge graph, indexed with SQLite (optional Postgres vectors), plus an optional hosted cloud. widely used MCP memory server with a paid cloud tier

  • Cline Memory Bank T2

    memory-bank/ directory of Markdown: projectBrief.md , productContext.md , activeContext.md , systemPatterns.md , techContext.md , progress.md . Loaded in full at start of every task. Compensates for context-window reset between sessions.

Sources (50 cited facts, 2 third-party)

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Related systems

References (1)