#workflow

I ran claude-mem for four and a half months. Six things were broken, four of them since March, and none ever raised an error.

Choose context controls from L0 to L5 according to the failure you observe, from project documentation to scoped rules, behavior checks and shared configuration.

Compare eager and deferred MCP tool loading, distinguish context use from billed tokens, and choose servers for a concrete workflow need.

An illustrative 243-file migration split across bounded agents, with a shared brief, local checks and sequential merge validation.

Hooks are shell scripts with your user permissions. MCP servers are third-party code with access to your credentials. Their timing and access depend on the configured events and server.

Three configuration layers for project context, daily tools and persistent memory, with checks for what loads and how it behaves.

Separate test creation from implementation, verify the expected failure, and give automated TDD retries an explicit exit path.

Use L0 to L5 to diagnose context drift, then maintain adherence through observation, repair, and replay instead of treating setup as finished.

6 human commit authors plus Claude in our git history (May 2026 snapshot). What the commit patterns actually look like after months of Claude Code, beyond the marketing claims.

Choose between Claude Code and Cowork, then follow the Start, Build, or Scale path that matches your role and current operating problem.

Nine months of AI configuration in one production project: evolving responsibilities, profile-based generation and a measured reduction in always-on lines.

Everyone talks about shipping 10x faster with AI. Nobody talks about accumulating debt 10x faster. 7 months of production data from a real EdTech platform.

Jeremy Twei coined it. Addy Osmani popularized it. Margaret-Anne Storey extended it to teams. Here's what I built to fight all three.