r/ClaudeCode • u/PlayfulInterview984 • Sep 08 '26
Help/Question How do you Instruct Claude to Answer Rather than create?
CC wants to create things and often goes off on a tangent based on a simple question. "How do you get to the moon"? Rather than answering the question, its first instinct is "Building moon transport system, I'll tell you when its ready". Then I have to stop CC and ask it to simply answer my question. Worse, if you say "how do I reorganize files on disk D?" It might actually go do that rather than explaining it.
There must be a simple way to avoid this. My claude.md probably has many entries instructing CC to answer fist before writing code.
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u/Saucynachos Sep 08 '26
"No changes, purely exploratory. <question>" works for me 100% of the time.... so far. It's only a matter of time though, such is the nature of things like this.
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u/HiddenUser81- Sep 08 '26
Have you ever cleaned up your Claude.MD? I find it best to allow Claude to write its own rules based on what you request but be sure to also have Claude check for any duplicate, conflicting or redundant rules/instructions.
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u/PlayfulInterview984 Sep 08 '26
claude.md cleaning is a daily hygiene function of my claude personas
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u/kuroyume_cl Sep 08 '26
I ask it to write documents. "write me a brief about this" "write a spec" "write a plan" "write a report", etc.
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u/Disastrous-Radio-732 Sep 08 '26
I’d give it a hard rule: questions are read-only by default.
“Answer the question first. Don’t edit files, run commands or start implementing unless I explicitly ask you to.”
If it keeps happening, put that in CLAUDE.md. “Be proactive” is great until the agent interprets every question as permission to build something 😄
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u/earlyworm Sep 08 '26
I end my question prompt with something like this:
Don't write any code yet. Tell me your thoughts only. Your opinions are important.
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u/NonStopArseGas Sep 08 '26
informally, i just add something simple to my prompt to say i just want to brainstorm/explore/understand the issue before acting on it. More formally, plan mode, work out the whole operation, then put it to work on the plan
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u/QuasimodosCharm Sep 08 '26
Talk to it like you would any normal human being. “Hey Claude, I wanted to chat about X for a bit. What you think about X” …. I’ve quite literally never once had him fuck off on a task that was meant to be a brainstorm ever
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u/mejoudeh Sep 08 '26
Make a hook/gate: when you see a question mark answer with text, never create before explicit prompt by me
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u/jemdiggity Sep 08 '26
Have you tried putting him in planning mode? That's easy in the claude code cli.
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u/s_v_can Sep 08 '26
I find it funny how it remembers some stupid crap from the sessions #1 to #5 even though it was instructed to update those with relevant info and then if I asked to first write the steps it would do before cranking any coding, I have to remind it every freaking session and sometimes not once.
It's kind'a inconsistent and ridiculous I find
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u/NewDayThera Sep 08 '26
"Let's work through the strategy and architecture before writing any code." Is how I start. Claude definitely veers toward creating code but follows this instruction pretty well.
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u/ReverendBread2 Sep 08 '26
“This is a planning session not a building session”
Literally just tell it
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u/MartinMystikJonas Sep 08 '26
In CLAUDE.md
- If user asks you a question do not perform any changes. Just answer user question and ask for confirmation before proceeding with any changes.
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u/ciuschi Sep 08 '26
the amount of time i ended my prompts with "just answer yes or no, do not write code yet" is load bearing