3.3
The Routing Table
Why this exists
Your map says what exists. It doesn't say where to go for what — and that gap is where most of the value is.
This is the smallest thing in Level 3 and the one that does the most work. Four lines in a table, and Claude stops guessing.
The idea
Without a routing table, Claude does one of two things — and both are bad.
Either it reads everything, which is slow, costs more, and buries your question in noise. Or it guesses which files matter, and guesses wrong in a way you won't necessarily notice.
The table removes the choice. It sits in your CLAUDE.md and it looks like this:
| Task | Go to | Read | Skills |
|-------------------|--------------|------------|-----------|
| Write content | /writing | CONTEXT.md | humanizer |
| Build something | /production | CONTEXT.md | remotion |
| Research | /research | CONTEXT.md | — |
| Client work: Alpha| /clients/alpha | CONTEXT.md | — |
Four columns. What kind of job, which folder it happens in, what to read when it gets there, and which tools apply. That's the whole pattern.
What makes it powerful is that it turns a vague instruction into a lookup. "Help me with my content" is ambiguous — content could mean anything, and Claude has to infer. "Write content" is a row in a table with an address attached.
The knock-on effects are worth naming, because they're why this is the highest-leverage four lines in the course:
- It makes the layers actually work. Rooms only pay off if the right one gets opened. The table is what opens it.
- It makes scaling free. New client? Copy the folder shape, write a
CONTEXT.md, add one row. Done. No re-architecture. - It's a design tool. Writing the table forces you to name what you actually do. If you can't fill in a row, that kind of work doesn't have a home yet — and now you know.
Keep it short. Four to six rows. If you're at ten, you either have too many workspaces (3.5 covers this) or you're routing tasks that aren't different enough to need separate rooms.
One thing to watch: the table has to match reality. A row pointing at a folder you renamed is worse than no row at all, because Claude will follow it confidently. When the structure changes, the table changes in the same sitting.
Do
- Open the
CLAUDE.mdyou wrote in 3.2. - Before you add anything, ask Claude a vague but real question about your project — the kind you'd actually type. Watch which files it opens. Note whether it read things it didn't need.
- Now write your routing table. Four columns: task, go to, read, skills. Leave the skills column as
—for now; that's Level 7. - Four to six rows. One row per kind of work from your 3.1 sketch.
- Ask the exact same question again. Compare which files it opened.
- Try to break it: ask about a kind of work that isn't in the table. Watch what happens.
- Step 6 will show you a gap. Either add the row, or decide that work doesn't belong in this project. Write down which you chose and why.
Step 6 is the useful one. The question that doesn't match a row is telling you something real — either your table is incomplete, or you're trying to do two projects in one folder.
Done when
Never do
Never leave a stale row in the table. A row pointing at a folder you renamed is worse than having no row, because Claude follows it with complete confidence and you get a confused answer with no obvious cause. Rename a folder, fix the table in the same sitting.