Custom setups and saved instructions

Same job as a Claude Project, different mechanics. The content you write is the part that matters and it moves between them.

By Nauman Hashmi

Reviewed September 2026. This page names fast-moving vendor detail, so it carries a review date.

The same division, in a saved setup

In the standing instructions

The role: who it is writing as, and for what kind of business.
The reading level and the tone, described rather than named.
A standing instruction to ask before assuming anything missing.
The never list, written out in full rather than referred to.
The default length and structure.

In the conversation

This job, this reader, this deadline.
The notes, the transcript or the draft you are working from.
Any one-off constraint that does not apply to the next job.

A setup that has to be explained before it works is not a setup. Write the standing half so somebody else could use it cold.

The layers available

Account-level instructions that apply to everything you do.
Per-setup instructions and reference files for one kind of job.
Shared setups, where a workspace plan makes them available to the team.

What to put where

Account level holds what's always true: who you are, the business, the tone, the never list. Per-setup holds the job: the format, the examples, the inclusions, the refusals. Mixing the two is the reason most people's instructions stop working — the general advice starts contradicting the specific job.

Shared setups and consistency

Where the team shares a setup, four people produce documents that look like one organisation. That's usually a bigger win than any individual's speed, and it's the argument that justifies a paid workspace plan.

Check what's shared before you share it

A setup built from real documents can carry client detail in its examples. De-identify the examples before a setup is shared with anyone.

Saved instructions, in practice

The same principle as a Project on the other side: put the context that's true every time in one place, so nobody rebuilds it. The difference is scope — saved instructions tend to suit one person's repeated job, where a shared setup suits a team's standard document.

What belongs in there: your format, your tone, the things you never say, and the output length you actually want. What doesn't: anything from your never list, and anything true only this week.

The version-drift problem

Saved setups on individual accounts drift. Three people end up with three formats, and nobody notices until a client gets two documents that don't match. The fix is boring and effective: one owner per document type, and the setup written down somewhere outside the tool.

If your team has quietly grown three versions of the same document, that's a good first job to fix.

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