Claude as Developer

Part 8 of 11 — A Practical Guide to Claude Setup

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Just to prove anyone can be build solutions from nearly anywhere… I built three new solutions and am publishing this all while I am flying at 38,000 feet somewhere over Nevada. I’m headed to Silicon Valley today to present and be with hundreds of others at the 2026 Missional AI conference! If you’re there this week, find me!

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For today’s article, I want you to know that you don’t have to be a developer to need a coding file. In fact, the people who benefit most from CLAUDE_CODING.md are often the ones who aren’t developers. Those most to benefit from this are the leaders, strategists, and operations managers who need technical work done but don’t have a developer on call.

When Claude knows your tech stack, your standards, and your environment, it stops producing generic solutions and starts producing things that actually work in your world.

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Why This File Matters Even If You Don’t Code

Here’s the practical reality: Claude can write production-ready scripts, build automations, set up API integrations, and debug complex errors. It can do all of this for you even if you’ve never written a line of code. If you do write code, it’ll do it for you.

Claude can only do this well if it knows your context.

Without CLAUDE_CODING.md, Claude might build a solution using tools you don’t have access to, assume an infrastructure you’re not running, or write code that works in theory but fails in your actual environment. You end up debugging someone else’s assumptions. This is why AI sort of stunk at writing code for the past few years.

With a properly configured CLAUDE_CODING.md file, Claude begins every technical task already knowing your stack, your constraints, and your preferences.

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What to Include

Your Tech Stack

List the core technologies you work with. Be specific. “Python” is a start. “Python 3.11 running on a cloud VPS, using [specific APIs], deployed via [your approach]” is useful. If you don’t know these details precisely, Claude can help you find them.

Coding Standards

How do you want code written? Non-negotiables like: always document your code, API keys always in environment variables (never hardcoded), error handling should be explicit. If you don’t have strong preferences, say that. Claude’s defaults are reasonable.

Infrastructure Context

Where does your code run? Cloud provider, local machine, specific services. Even a basic description helps Claude avoid solutions that assume the wrong environment.

Security Non-Negotiables

A short list of things Claude should never do in your codebase. The most universal ones: never hardcode credentials, never log sensitive data, always validate inputs.

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A Fictional Example

Meet Elena. She leads operations at a mid-size education nonprofit. She’s not a developer, but someone told her about running Python scripts to pull data from their donor CRM, process it, and push reports to their board dashboard. Here’s a sketch of her CLAUDE_CODING.md:

Stack: Python 3.11. Hosted on a DigitalOcean droplet. Primary integrations: Salesforce API (donor data), Google Sheets API (reporting), Mailchimp API (communications).

Standards: Production-ready code with error handling on every external API call. API keys in environment variables. All functions documented. Scripts should run without breaking even when data is missing or malformed.

Security: No credentials in code ever. Log errors but not the data that caused the error. Scripts that handle donor data should be in the private repo, not the shared one.

Common patterns: I often need to pull data from Salesforce, transform it, and push it to a Google Sheet. Here’s the basic pattern I use: [paste a short example]

With this file loaded, when Elena says “write a script to pull our Q2 donor data and format it for the board report,” Claude doesn’t ask which CRM, doesn’t assume she’s on AWS, doesn’t hardcode her API key. It builds for her specific environment from the first draft.

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The Non-Developer Secret

Here’s the honest advice if you’re not technical is to build this file collaboratively with Claude.

Start a session and say:
"I'm setting up a CLAUDE_[CODING.md](<http://CODING.md>) file. I'm not a developer but I regularly do [describe your technical tasks]. Help me document my tech context in a way that will make you more useful for these tasks."

Claude will ask you the right questions and help you build a file that captures what matters, even if you wouldn’t have known how to frame it yourself.

That’s the meta-lesson: Claude can help you build the system that makes Claude better. You don’t need to know everything to start.

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Starter Template

# Coding Context — [Your Name]

## Stack
- Language: [primary language and version]
- Hosting: [where your code runs]
- Key services/APIs: [what you integrate with]

## Standards
- Always: [non-negotiable patterns]
- Error handling: [your approach]
- Documentation: [your expectation]
- Security: [your requirements]

## Infrastructure
[Brief description of your environment]

## Common Patterns
[Any patterns you reuse — paste a short example if you have one]

## Avoid
- [Things Claude should never do in your environment]

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Next: Article 09, platform personas. How to build tweet files, deck files, and other output-specific context.

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You don’t need to speak the language to set the standards.

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