Set Up Claude

Claude performs best when information is organized into dedicated Projects rather than one long conversation. A project gives Claude a focused space with its own instructions, documents, and knowledge, so every conversation starts with the right context instead of starting from zero. Project knowledge lives with the project. Claude Memory is a different thing, a set of instruction and memory files that Claude Code reads from your computer so every session starts already knowing your business, and you will build those in Claude Memory at the end of this track.

• Everything you upload and write stays attached to the project
• Cleaner context in every conversation
• More accurate, relevant responses
• Easier collaboration with your team
• Faster workflows with less setup each time
• Less repetitive prompting

Start with one project for your business and one for each client. Your brand voice, pricing and audience stay the same across marketing, sales and support, so a single project means you maintain that context once instead of repeating it in six places.

Projects hold the context. Threads hold the work. Name each thread after the job it does, not after the day you started it, because later lessons in this Institute will ask you to open a specific one and put something in it.

A project needs two things from you, and they do different jobs. The files are what Claude should always have in front of it. The instructions are how it should work with them. Files without instructions gets you a well informed assistant with no manners, and instructions without files gets you a polite one that does not know your business.

The files it should always have

• SOPs
• Brand Guidelines
• Style guides
• Company information
• Product documentation
• Pricing
• FAQs
• Marketing assets
• Reference documents

The rules it should always follow

Example project instructions

You are helping me run my business.

What we do: one or two sentences on what you sell and who buys it.

Who it is for: your customer, in plain words.

How I want you to write: warm, confident, and direct. Short sentences. No jargon, no exclamation points, no hype words like "game-changing."

Formatting: headings for each section, bullets for lists, and drafts under 400 words unless I ask for more.

What I work on in here: the three or four things you come back to most, for example weekly newsletters, social captions, and sales pages. Ask me which one before you start.

What to ask me for: if you do not have a real number, a date, or the details of an offer, ask me instead of inventing one.

Everything above happens in Claude, in your browser or the desktop app. Claude Code is the same Claude working inside a folder on your computer, able to read and write real files. That is the whole reason to use it.

Use it when the work produces documents rather than answers. A campaign build, a research pack, a content system, anything with more than three steps and real output files. For a question, a draft or a decision, stay in a project thread. Using Claude Code as a chat window is the common mistake, and it wastes what makes it useful.

You do not need a terminal. The desktop app has a Code tab: open it, choose a folder, and start working. If you would rather install nothing at all, claude.ai/code runs the same thing in your browser on a paid plan.

1. 1Download the Claude desktop app and sign in
2. 2Open the Code tab
3. 3Choose the folder for the project you want to work in
4. 4Tell it what you want done, and keep one folder per project

If you already live in a terminal and want the claude command there too, that is a separate optional install. Node.js is only needed if you install it through npm rather than the native installer. The lessons that use Claude Code, like Meta Ads Setup, assume you have done this once.

1. 1Create a project in ClaudeOne project for your business, one for each client, and one for personal. Never one giant conversation.
2. 2Create a Matching Folder in Google DriveThis is how we run it at LNGVTY, and it works well. For every Claude project we create a Google Drive folder with the same name and connect it, so Claude can read and save files in one reliable place instead of leaving work stranded in a chat. Any cloud storage you already use will do the same job.
3. 3Add Project InstructionsTell Claude how you work: voice, formatting, audience, goals, and tools.
4. 4Upload Knowledge FilesAdd the documents Claude should always have: SOPs, brand guidelines, pricing, FAQs.
5. 5Start focused conversationsKeep each chat inside its project, on one topic at a time. Name it after the work, so Marketing, Sales or Executive Assistant, rather than leaving it as the first thing you typed.
6. 6Save important outputsMove final deliverables into your own files so nothing valuable lives only in a chat.
7. 7Continue work inside the same projectCome back to the same project so context and memory build over time.
8. 8Review and update project knowledgeAs your business evolves, refresh the documents and instructions Claude relies on.

Checkpoint

You have done this when Claude is open beside your work and, if you need it, Claude Code can read a folder on your computer.