Most people customise Claude in one place: The prompt. The two surfaces that actually shape every session, you ignore. How Claude talks to you, and how you read what's happening. Both are configurable. Both compound across hundreds of hours. The framework I run, and how to set it up: Surface 1: The voice Claude has defaults. They're fine. They're not yours. I'm dyslexic. Walls of text are invisible to me. So my Claude has a non-negotiable response format, written into ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md: Every reply ends with a bold marker: → DECISION, → QUESTION, → NO DECISION NEEDED. I know what's required of me in under three seconds of skimming. Header tier = importance, not nesting depth. # is THE headline. ## is a main section. #### is an inline label. The size matches how load-bearing it is to read. `mono font` is reserved for paths, values, commands. Never for emphasis. The font swap is a signal. --- between major pivots like status to decision. The horizontal rule is the unmissable section break. Bold keywords inside sentences. Dyslexic eyes skim for bold anchors. Absolute paths only, so cmd+click opens them from inside the terminal. If you also use Codex, mirror the same rules to ~/.codex/AGENTS.md. Two harnesses, one voice. Surface 2: The interface The Claude Code statusline runs once per turn, costs zero tokens, can render colour. Mine shows: 47% · opus-4.7 · WORKSPACE · main* · 2🛠 · 02:41 Six fields: context %, model, workspace name, branch + dirty flag, dispatch worker count, session clock. Colour-coded by zone. Context % goes green under 50%, yellow at 50-75%, red at 90%. Branch yellow when dirty, red on conflict. Workspace gets a brand colour mapped from the path I'm in. The 50% threshold matches the rule already written into my voice config: write a session handoff at 50% context. Now I can see the threshold without asking. How to set this up Customise the voice. Open ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md. Write your own rules. Mine took an afternoon to draft and three weeks of iteration to lock down. Yours will start ugly. That's fine.

Even before the meetings happen, preparation is everything. I’ve been brainstorming how to take the principles we learn here and scale them for a global corporation (14,000 employees, 72 countries). This is the "North Star" for my journey toward becoming an AI Finance Manager. It’s a technical skeleton that ensures security, scalability, and—most importantly—the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) model for the end-user. The Infrastructure (The Engine Room) Using the folder structure we’ve mastered, I’ve mapped out how a global hub would actually look "under the hood":Plaintext/ ├── CLAUDE.md # The Master Router (Direct OData Logic) ├── /identity # ACCESS CONTROL GATE │ ├── global_admins.md # Full access (Admin level) │ ├── DK.md # Validated users for Denmark │ └── [70+ countries].md # Global validation files ├── /library # THE COMMAND CATALOG │ ├── /global # Standard tools (e.g., /extract_ledger) │ └── /local # Country-specific tools (e.g., /dk_vat_report) ├── /core-logic # THE ENGINE ROOM │ ├── date_parser.md # Translates "MMYY" into OData parameters │ └── odata_templates.md # Master OData entity mapping ├── /countries # LOCAL CONTEXT & AUDIT │ └── /DK │ ├── audit-log.md # Record: Date | User | Command | Status │ └── local_settings.md # Local Legal Entity IDs / Currencies ├── /technical # SYSTEM RELIABILITY │ ├── mcp_config.md # OData read-only parameters │ └── health_check.md # System status triggers └── /schemas # EXCEL TEMPLATES └── ledger_standard.xlsx # Raw data structure The User Journey: From Teams to "Done" I want a user (let’s call him Lars) to get what he needs in under 60 seconds without ever touching a complex ERP menu. 1. The Request: Lars types /dk_vat_report 0126 in Microsoft Teams. 2. The Gatekeeper: The system checks /identity/DK.md. Lars is validated. 3. The Health Check: The system pings the MCP (Model Context Protocol). Connection is green. 4. The Data Pull: The AI uses the date_parser to see that 0126 means January 2026. It reaches directly into D365 via OData. 5. Delivery: The AI maps the data into a clean Excel template and uploads it to the chat. 6. Audit: The system silently logs the action for compliance.