CLAUDE.md context lost after /compact — re-inject project instructions

[bosgeluk]

Problem

After running /compact, the contents of CLAUDE.md (project instructions) are summarized along with the rest of the conversation history. This means project-specific rules, conventions, and constraints defined in CLAUDE.md may be partially or fully lost after compaction.

This is particularly problematic for projects with detailed governance rules (commit conventions, push procedures, naming conventions, security rules, etc.) that must be followed consistently throughout the entire session — including after a compact.

Expected behavior

CLAUDE.md project instructions should be re-injected in full after /compact, similar to how they are injected at conversation start. They are not conversation history — they are persistent project context that should survive compaction.

Current workaround

After every /compact, the user must manually say "read CLAUDE.md" to restore the project instructions. This is easy to forget and defeats the purpose of having a persistent project configuration file.

Proposal

Treat CLAUDE.md content as a system-level invariant that is always present in context, not as part of the conversation history that gets compacted. After /compact, re-inject the full CLAUDE.md content automatically.

Environment

• Claude Code CLI
• Observed with Claude Opus 4.6

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. [BUG] Claude forgets everything in CLAUDE.md after compaction #6354
2. [BUG] CLAUDE.md instructions completely ignored after context compaction #19471
3. Feature Request: Auto-read CLAUDE.md after context compaction #14626

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[Kanrinin-sama]

+1 — hitting this constantly in long sessions with teams of agents.

After compaction, all CLAUDE.md rules vanish. File ownership boundaries, delegation rules, process management constraints, custom workflow instructions — gone. Claude proceeds to violate its own project rules because it literally doesn't have them anymore.

The compaction summary captures conversation state but NOT the CLAUDE.md contents. So the longer and more complex your session (exactly when you need those rules most), the more likely they get silently dropped.

This is arguably the highest-impact quality-of-life fix for power users. PLEASE prioritize this.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[github-actions]

Closing for now — inactive for too long. Please open a new issue if this is still relevant.