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“Notes on Collaborating with Claude Opus” by Nissa Seru
INTENT: Share elements of my mental model regarding collaboration with Claude Opus models. Not intentionally scoped to a specific model version, but my experience is generally with the latest model version available (4.7 as of time of writing items 1-4 on 5/22/26)
Accompanying an instruction with the why significantly improves:
1a. Observed rate of the instruction being visibly salient to Claude
1b. Quality/nuance of instruction execution (baselined on 1a)
A standing instruction to break replies into labeled sections and sub-sections improves ergonomics of reference to specific points:
2a. Claude reliably follows references to "A3" or "B5". This is much more ergonomic for me over the course of a session compared to "on that point about blah..."
2b. Claude actively uses the references as handles (in contrast to labeling sections but otherwise not interacting with the labels.)
Negatively-framed instructions increase salience of the prohibited action.
3a. Depending on the instruction itself, the net effect may be an increase or decrease in prevalance of the prohibited action.
3b. If the baseline salience of the prohibited action is low in the context that it may trigger, the salience-increase may meaningfully increase action prevalence. [...]
---
First published:
May 22nd, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5abm94pmRn8pXiHtw/notes-on-collaborating-with-claude-opus
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
View all episodes
By LessWrongINTENT: Share elements of my mental model regarding collaboration with Claude Opus models. Not intentionally scoped to a specific model version, but my experience is generally with the latest model version available (4.7 as of time of writing items 1-4 on 5/22/26)
Accompanying an instruction with the why significantly improves:
1a. Observed rate of the instruction being visibly salient to Claude
1b. Quality/nuance of instruction execution (baselined on 1a)
A standing instruction to break replies into labeled sections and sub-sections improves ergonomics of reference to specific points:
2a. Claude reliably follows references to "A3" or "B5". This is much more ergonomic for me over the course of a session compared to "on that point about blah..."
2b. Claude actively uses the references as handles (in contrast to labeling sections but otherwise not interacting with the labels.)
Negatively-framed instructions increase salience of the prohibited action.
3a. Depending on the instruction itself, the net effect may be an increase or decrease in prevalance of the prohibited action.
3b. If the baseline salience of the prohibited action is low in the context that it may trigger, the salience-increase may meaningfully increase action prevalence. [...]
---
First published:
May 22nd, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5abm94pmRn8pXiHtw/notes-on-collaborating-with-claude-opus
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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