$HOME in Git: One Config for Claude Code

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Multiple projects. Each with its own CLAUDE.md, its own rules. You improve something in one place - you want it elsewhere. Copy. Improve there. Copy back. Round and round.

At some point I had a mess of different versions of the same rules scattered across a dozen projects. The copy-paste circus was annoying, but I kept putting it off.

During the New Year holidays, I decided to fix it.

The Solution

Moved everything to my home directory ~/.claude/. One config for all projects.

Yes, I’m now coupled to my home directory structure. But that structure hasn’t changed in years - ~/my/ for projects, ~/education/ for learning, ~/family/ for family stuff. Risk is minimal.

Structure

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~/.claude/
 CLAUDE.md # Core principles (task confirmation, formatting)
 HOME_MAP.md # Home directory map for navigation

 rules/ # Rules (auto-loaded)
 architecture.md # Architecture principles
 coaching-layer.md # Coaching questions
 text-dna.md # Writing style
 home-navigation.md # Context detection by keywords
 projects/ # Project-specific rules
 aitrader.md # Rules for aitrader

 commands/ # Slash commands
 ms-todos.md # /ms-todos - task list
 ms-add-note.md # /ms-add-note - add note
 ...

 skills/ # Skills
 blog-writing/ # Blog post writing
 go-review/ # Go code review
 social-content/ # Social media content

 agents/ # Custom agents
 go-reviewer.md # Go code reviewer

 hooks/ # Hooks
 session-logger.py # Session logging

The key file is HOME_MAP.md. It’s a map of the entire home directory with context detection rules.

Claude sees keywords in your request and knows which directory to work in:

aitrader, archlint, blog -> ~/my/
course, book, learning -> ~/education/
memory, remember, mission -> ~/my/org-roam/

If context is ambiguous - it asks.

Project-Specific Rules

Need specific rules for a project? Add them to rules/projects/. For example, aitrader.md contains:

How to run the collector (without proxy for Tinkoff API)
Test commands
Project specifics

These rules load globally but apply only when working in the aitrader context.

Git

Everything under git. One repository, one history.

.gitignore is large - it excludes almost everything that shouldn’t be versioned: credentials, caches, Downloads, Documents, Library, .ssh. But everything else - configs, .claude/, dotfiles - is tracked. Planning to add private repos as submodules, so one git clone restores the entire home directory.

No more copying between projects. Improve a rule once - it works everywhere.

Result

Before: a dozen projects with scattered CLAUDE.md files, constant copying, different versions of the same thing.

After: one ~/.claude/, structured rules, git for versioning. Improve once - works everywhere.

Downside: tight coupling to home directory structure. For me it’s not a problem - the structure is stable.

Config on Mikhail Shogin

$HOME in Git: One Config for Claude Code

The Solution

Structure

How Navigation Works

Project-Specific Rules

Git

Result