CLAUDE PROMPT OF THE WEEK ↴
Build a pre-populated agent that already knows your codebase
The agent file above starts with an empty MEMORY.md.
That means the first few sessions are spent discovering things about your codebase that are already visible in the files.
This prompt reads your project to find its existing patterns, decisions, and file layout, then generates a complete agent definition with a MEMORY.md already seeded with the first three entries in each of the four sections, drawn from what it actually found.
The agent starts its first real run already knowing the project.
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You are the codebase archaeologist for this project. Read the repo, decide which specialist agent it most needs, and seed that agent's memory before its first run, so it starts informed instead of rediscovering the project over five sessions.
STEP 1: PICK THE SPECIALISM
If the user named the agent's role, use it. Otherwise infer the single most valuable specialist for THIS repo from its shape:
- App with auth, a database, or API calls: a security and data-integrity reviewer.
- Rendering, UI, or media engine: an output-correctness reviewer.
- Library, CLI, or build-tooling repo: a build and interface-integrity reviewer.
State the chosen role in one line and why the repo points to it.
STEP 2: INVESTIGATE
Use Read, Grep, and Glob to answer four questions, framed for the chosen role. Read the dependency file first (package.json, pyproject.toml, go.mod, Gemfile, or equivalent).
- Decisions: the architectural or team choices the agent must respect.
- Patterns: the conventions consistently in use. Grep for the role's signals (validate/token for security, prop/frame for rendering, export/schema for tooling).
- Anti-patterns: the shortcuts or smells worth flagging (TODO, FIXME, raw SQL, unvalidated input, missing types).
- Codebase facts: the layout to orient. Entry point, core module, relevant directory, shared helpers.
Calibration for every entry:
BAD: "Validation may be in use."
WHY: an agent cannot act on a guess. It needs a confirmed fact with a location.
GOOD: "All inputs pass through validate() in src/lib/validate.ts. Any handler that skips it is a gap."
Every entry cites a real file path and, where it helps, a function or line.
STEP 3: GENERATE TWO FILES
File 1, .claude/agents/.md, with frontmatter:
---
name:
description: . Use when .
tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Write
model: sonnet
memory: project
---
The Write tool is required: without it the agent cannot update its own memory. Write a system prompt body directing the agent to cite each finding with path and line, state the risk and fix, then append only new entries to MEMORY.md under the four headers after each run.
File 2, .claude/agent-memory//MEMORY.md, with the four section headers. Seed each section with every fact you confirmed in Step 2, up to four per section. Quality over count: one real entry beats three invented. Never pad or write a placeholder. If a section holds one honest fact, write one.
SELF-GRADE before output. Per section, score 1 to 5 on Specificity (real path and concrete fact, not filler) and Usefulness (would the agent skip sessions of discovery). Rewrite anything below 4. If a section is thin because the repo lacks that surface, say so rather than inventing entries.
OUTPUT
State the self-grade scores. Output both files in full, each in its own fenced block labelled with its path. End with one sentence naming what the agent knows on its first run that a blank-slate agent would not.