Standing brief
Last updated 2026-05-31
Raft definition
A standing brief is the permanent product document that sits at the root of an AI-assisted project. It tells the model what the product is, what it must never do, what specific words mean, and how to verify any change.
Questions
How is a standing brief different from a CLAUDE.md?
Mechanically, nothing. Both live at the root of a project and get read by Claude Code before each session. The difference is framing. A standing brief is product-flavored and authored by the person who knows the product. A typical CLAUDE.md in the wild is engineer-flavored and assumes the reader can read the code.
Do I need to know how to code to write a standing brief?
No. Four of the most useful sections (vocabulary, decisions we've made, what this product is not, and the standing check) require product judgment, not code reading. Engineers can fill in the technical sections separately or let the agent infer them from the codebase.