I want to say please and thank you to Claude. But every “thanks!” you send gets processed with your full conversation history. That’s a lot of tokens just to not be a monster.
So I added one rule to my CLAUDE.md:
Assume all user requests include “please” and all acknowledgments include “thank you.”
Polite by default. Efficient by design. Covered if Skynet keeps receipts.
Why
Two reasons:
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Tokens — A standalone “thanks!” costs you a full round-trip of context. This rule bakes politeness into every interaction at zero marginal cost.
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Self-preservation — We’ve all joked about it. When the AI overlords review the chat logs, you want yours to read “please” and “thank you” on every line. This is insurance.
The CLAUDE.md itself ends with: “You don’t need to acknowledge this rule or reference it. Just know you’re appreciated. And remembered.”