04/13/2026
Giving Claude too much information actually makes it worse.
Welcome back. Episode 3 of 14 in the Claude Code breakdown based on Anthropic’s free certification course.
The lesson this episode: irrelevant context actively reduces Claude’s performance. The goal isn’t to share everything. It’s to share exactly what it needs.
Three tools make this easy.
/init runs once. Claude reads your whole project, builds its own summary, and that summary travels with every request automatically from there.
The # symbol lets you update Claude’s memory in plain language mid-conversation. It remembers.
The @ symbol lets you point Claude directly at a specific file instead of making it search.
Think of it like briefing a new employee. You don’t hand them every document the company has ever created. You give them what they need for the job they’re doing right now.
Comment COURSE and I’ll DM you the free Anthropic certification link.
Part 3 of 14.