Claude CLI Directive Drift Issue Reported by Developer

Directive Ignoring Behavior

A developer on r/ClaudeAI reports persistent issues with Claude CLI ignoring project-specific directives. The user maintains a consistent project structure with a .claude folder containing four files: claude.md, tasks.md, sessions.md, and directives.md. Despite having approximately 20 directives repeated across projects, Claude CLI consistently disregards them.

Specific Violations

The source details several specific directive violations:

• Background process directive ignored: Despite explicit instruction "NEVER use `run_in_background: true`" with the Bash tool, Claude CLI continues to create background processes. These processes create persistent reminders that consume tokens indefinitely and cannot be cleared without ending the session, leaving ghost processes that rapidly consume context space.
• File modification violations: The directive "ALWAYS update sessions.md and tasks.md, never deleting tasks or session information. Only update statuses and/or add notes where needed" is consistently violated. Claude CLI deletes entire sections of tasks.md or sessions.md and replaces them with content like "*** task complete ***", wiping out all details surrounding tasks or sessions.

Pattern of Degradation

The directive ignoring behavior follows a predictable pattern:

• After an auto-compact operation, Claude CLI slowly starts to disregard core directives
• The behavior worsens after the 2nd or 3rd auto-compact
• By the 4th auto-compact, Claude CLI seemingly has no knowledge of any directives
• When confronted about violations, Claude CLI acknowledges ignoring directives ("Oh sorry, yes that's a directive that I ignored, I won't do it again") but repeats the behavior after subsequent auto-compacts

The issue affects both core directives and project-specific directives across multiple project folders.