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Ask HN: What are your best Claude hacks?
danschuller 2 days ago [-]
A few things that have worked well for me:

  - Like normal software engineering - building small parts in isolation, verifying they work and then bringing them together to make the whole.

  - Asking Claude to do things using sub-agents to keep the parent context clean. i.e. reviewing plans, research, code reviews
  
  - If there's ever something you can have verification on - a test suite, a screenshot with pixel reading, a certain output to match. Then with `/goal` it tends to work very well with little guidance (in my experience)
  
  - If it keeps getting things wrong, then I make it write a skill. i.e. for some reason it always had errors running playwright but would get there in the end, and it would always have trouble with auth on my NAS but with the skill it can follow the path that's worked for it in the past and not burn tokens
Fotis-Karmpas 2 days ago [-]
I do the same i would add sometimes when it gets stuck and gets things wrong i go to chatgpt to figure out the issues then go back to claude and it agrees and self correct. i have used claude to help me launch my project [https://thrivez.io].
Schiendelman 2 days ago [-]
I've been finding that I don't even have to ask Claude to make subagents anymore. It does it by itself most of the time in Opus 4.8.
akashwadhwani35 2 days ago [-]
That's true
deejax 19 hours ago [-]
Firstly the obvious ,start with a clear plan and write them down in a md file that you work together with it. Execute things in chuck and always updating the docs as it goes and taking note of any deviations or changes from initially set rules and assumptions.

I achieve this by:

Asking it to create test scenarios and documentations as it builds.

Along with the CLAUDE.md also ask it to create area specific files (example: frontend, backend, security, database, testing) all being referenced in the main CLAUDE.md where it saves the detailed rules for that area. This would help immensely when the project grows avoid hitting the CLAUDE.md file limit.

spgorbatiuk 2 days ago [-]
I don't know if it's just my perception, but I think the "channels" feature is massively underestimated. I get that it's basically their response to openclaw, and people kind of had enough of that stuff, but having my agent in my favourite messenger is a game-changer for me.

It's different for me from just app chat, because I have some specific custom workflows and tools I gave to the agent, and, yes, all of the nice stuff mentioned in other comments

Schiendelman 2 days ago [-]
when you're doing that, do you have to use claude's cloud code system? Or can you link to a local repository?
mybbor 2 days ago [-]
I think one of my favorite workflow hacks is to instruct the various harnesses to use the same format for writing handoffs, instructions, and context for me and for the next agent.

Instead of a Claude.md file, I have all my agents look for and use a generic, agents.md, file and a create/update a humans.md file throughout projects. Regardless of whether I'm using the CLI or a harness app, I almost always create a new folder for new projects, and I'll use subfolders for subprojects.

The humans.md file is for me so I can look at it and remember which harness I was using last. If this was a Claude project, a Codex project, or an OpenClaw project, etc. It also includes some human-readable details to bring me up to speed with the project context. I found this makes it a lot easier to switch models mid-project.

Amir6 19 hours ago [-]
Be careful about which model you use with Claude;

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586039

AM_TM 2 days ago [-]
I use chaptgpt to give me the claude prompts so they cover everything I need and it works so well!
lucasacosta_ 1 days ago [-]
It may not qualify as a hack, but I use Soonpatch to paste a slack link and get the bug/improvement solved in the proper repo right away, no matter in which directory I call it
bnova 2 days ago [-]
When you run into a bug/problem, asking it to find the source instead of asking it to fix it
akashwadhwani35 1 days ago [-]
smart
slipwalker 19 hours ago [-]
drop horizontal layers architectures and focus on vertical-slices. This alone reduces the needed context window per feature by an order of magnitude.
dakiol 2 days ago [-]
Cancellation of the subscription.

Now I am happier. Worked great!

mavericka6 2 days ago [-]
I can do thing that are good
Avery29 2 days ago [-]
Real-time web data access capability.
hugepan 1 days ago [-]
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yamakasi007 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
adarshprashar 2 days ago [-]
[dead]
IP14 2 days ago [-]
[flagged]
farrukh23buttt 2 days ago [-]
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