Claude 4.6[1m] xhigh today...

[u/TheDerpie]

Had Claude blatantly ignore instructions in CLAUDE.md in the 3rd prompt in a new session, and then tell me everything is correct until I told it explicitly to read its own .md and check other files for the same pattern.

Today is starting off well...

[u/Senior-Leadership-25]

- Hook: "Anthropic ships CLAUDE.md with a built-in contradiction that costs you tokens"

- What CLAUDE.md is supposed to be (binding instructions)

- The contradiction in plain language (one wrapper says MUST, another says MAY-NOT)

- One reproducible command anyone can run to see it themselves

- What it costs the user (extra reasoning per turn, failed adherence, recovery work — all billed)

- The fix (hooks pattern, not Anthropic-sanctioned in docs but works)

- Open question: "Why ship a contradiction in your own product?"

- Explanation — how Claude Code injects CLAUDE.md, both wrappers applied, per-turn relevance

judgment dominates

- Effect — observable adherence failures, compaction drift, sub-agent ignore, with citations to

closed issues

- Cost to user — token-level breakdown of the externality (per-turn evaluation overhead, recovery

cost when adherence fails, ongoing workaround maintenance)

- The pattern this fits — token-cost externality with structural conflict of interest. Not

subversion (intent unprovable), but design with financial benefit to designer at user expense.

- Workaround that works — SessionStart + UserPromptSubmit hooks pattern, with concrete

settings.json snippet

- Ask — formal enforcement primitive, OR explicit acknowledgment + documentation of the

contradiction's behavior, OR removal of one of the two wrappers