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Getting started with projects in Claude.ai

Discover how to use Projects in Claude to organize your work with persistent context and custom instructions. This tutorial walks you through creating your first project, adding a knowledge base, setting up project instructions, and collaborating with team members. Learn how Projects can help you maintain continuity across conversations and tailor Claude's responses to your specific needs—from brand guidelines to research initiatives to content creation workflows.

Dec 1, 20257mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Claude Projects overview: knowledge bases, instructions, sharing, and workflows

  1. Projects are self-contained Claude workspaces with their own chat histories, uploaded knowledge, and customized instructions to keep work organized and consistent.
  2. Uploading files to a Project creates a reusable knowledge base that Claude automatically considers in every chat, improving accuracy and alignment with team terminology and goals.
  3. Projects can scale to large amounts of information by automatically using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) when the context window would be exceeded.
  4. Users can tailor responses with Project Instructions (tone, expertise, style, outcomes) that apply across all conversations inside the Project.
  5. On Claude for Work plans, Projects support collaboration via sharing, public/private visibility, and role-based permissions for secure teamwork.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Use Projects to separate workflows into focused, reusable environments.

Each Project keeps its own chats, knowledge, and settings, reducing prompt repetition and helping Claude stay consistently aligned to a specific initiative or domain.

Upload core documents to the Project knowledge base for consistent answers.

Files added in the Project’s Files area become automatically available context in every Project chat, which is ideal for guidelines, specs, policies, or reference materials.

Rely on Project Instructions to standardize output quality and voice.

Instructions apply to every conversation in the Project and can define tone, expertise level, response format, and desired outcomes (e.g., “write like a marketer,” “use formal tone,” “explain reasoning”).

Expect Projects to handle large information sets via automatic RAG.

When your Project knowledge approaches context limits, Claude can switch to retrieval-augmented generation to pull the most relevant parts, expanding practical capacity without manual trimming.

Know the difference between Project knowledge and chat-only uploads.

Information is not automatically shared across separate chats unless it’s added to the Project knowledge base; for one-off context, upload files directly in a conversation to avoid “cluttering” the shared knowledge.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

With Projects, Claude users can create self-contained environments with their own chat histories, specific knowledge bases, and customized settings.

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Every time you chat with Claude inside of a project, this knowledge is automatically considered alongside your prompt.

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This contextual information enables Claude to deliver more informed project-specific responses that align with your team's goals, terminology, and background.

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Sometimes your project knowledge will approach the context window limit. Claude will automatically enable RAG mode to expand your project's capacity.

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The right permissions keep your projects secure while enabling smooth collaboration, so pick the options that work best for your team.

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Project knowledge base and file uploadsAutomatic context use across project chatsRetrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for large projectsProject Instructions (tone, style, perspective)Project creation steps and management (star, edit, archive/delete)Visibility settings and sharing (private vs public)Permissions: view, edit, creator; shared projects discovery/notifications

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