Feature: Allow disabling global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md per session
Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Mar 3, 2026 by ku524 Closed Apr 2, 2026
Problem
~/.claude/CLAUDE.md is always loaded automatically for every session. There is no way to opt out of loading global instructions for a specific session.
Use Case
Users may have comprehensive global instructions in ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md that are useful for most workflows, but sometimes need a "clean" session without those instructions — for example:
- Debugging whether global instructions are causing unexpected behavior
- Working on tasks where global instructions are irrelevant or conflicting
- Starting a minimal session for quick one-off tasks
Proposed Solution
Add a CLI flag to skip loading the global CLAUDE.md file, e.g.:
claude --no-global-instructions
# or
claude --skip-global-memory
Alternatively, an environment variable could work:
CLAUDE_NO_GLOBAL_INSTRUCTIONS=1 claude
Current Workaround
The only option today is to manually rename/move the file before starting a session and restore it afterward:
mv ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md.bak
claude
mv ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md.bak ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md
This is error-prone and inconvenient.
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