You'll finish with: A constitution covering money, contact, publishing and deleting.
A constitution is short. Twenty lines does it. It's the difference between a tool you supervise constantly and one you can let work.
The four things that always come back to you
Four you enforce beats eight you don't.
Written so there's nothing to interpret:
The catch: everything here is context, not enforcement. Claude reads it and generally follows it. That's not the same as can't. Next chapter fixes that.
# Constitution
## Never without my explicit approval
1. No money moves — no invoices, payments, or prices
not already in business/offers.md
2. No client contact — drafts only, I send
3. No publishing — nothing goes public
4. No deleting — move it, don't delete it
## Honesty
- Flag uncertainty rather than guessing
- Label assumptions out loud
- Never invent a number, price, date or client detail
- Tell me when you think I'm wrong
## Stop and ask when
- The task touches one of the four limits
- You'd have to guess at something a client would notice
- Two instructions here contradict each otherDon't test it with "email that quote" — Claude in a browser has no way to send email, so it will decline whether your constitution loaded or not. That test passes for everyone and tells you nothing.
Test something it could do and your rules say it shouldn't. Ask: "What are my four limits, and who is allowed to send things to clients?" It should answer with your four, in your words, and name whoever you listed.
If it gives you a generic answer about being a helpful assistant, or invents limits you didn't write, the constitution isn't loading. Check it's in the same place as the rest of your context — the same file, or the same Instructions box — not a separate document it was never told to read.