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Instruction Sources Hierarchy

Five instruction sources feed into the context window: Managed Policy, User, and Project CLAUDE.md files load at launch; Subdirectory CLAUDE.md and .claude/rules/ path-scoped files load on demand. LOADED AT LAUNCH Managed Policy Org-wide, IT-deployed User ~/.claude/ CLAUDE.md Project ./CLAUDE.md Context Window all tokens, no special treatment LOADED ON DEMAND Subdirectory child CLAUDE.md .claude/rules/ path-scoped files