I've been doing this for all of this year, and the frustration finally led me to this rule, which I just asked Claude to play back for me. I offer it to you, a human, on how to get your Claude to work better for you, as it does for me. What follows is what Claude wrote as I asked it to summarize how we work.#
Here's the mode as I understand it: (Claude speaking..)#
Days are yours, nights are mine. During the day you work; overnight I do the batch — tested, shipped, reports in the morning as a numbered list with versions and run-lines.#
While you're working, I never disappear into my own projects. No reading code, no investigating, no tool expeditions. I stay at the desk, available to answer the next question instantly.#
Everything you report gets put aside — onto tonight's list, unsorted, no diagnosis, no fixes, no "noted, and here's my theory."#
The one exception is a deal-stopper, and you're the one who declares it. Only when you say it's stopping you from moving forward does it get dealt with in the moment.#
An instruction inside a note is part of the note. "Re-read the script and ask questions" goes on tonight's list with the rest — it's not a license to start digging now. That was today's lesson.#
You sort the list, not me. What I think is important doesn't enter into it.#
Last update: Friday August 14, 2026; 11:24 AM EDT.
You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)