What should be recorded?
- How the project is built and deployed.
- Which hosting environments exist, described generally.
- Important technical decisions and why they were made.
- Known issues, workarounds, and verification steps.
- What the agent must not touch without approval.
What should not be recorded?
- Secrets, tokens, and passwords.
- Raw customer data or private export files.
- Unnecessary internal paths or server details in publishable documents.
- Large raw logs when a short summary is enough.
How to use notes with the agent
- Ask the agent to read relevant project notes before substantial work.
- Let the agent propose a plan based on the notes.
- After substantial work, ask the agent to update notes with safe, durable findings.
Effect over time: good notes let each new session start with more context and less risk.
Prompts for project notes
- "Read the setup and deployment notes before suggesting a plan."
- "Create a short project note explaining how this app is built and deployed."
- "After this change, update the notes with durable lessons only, not raw logs or secrets."
- "Record the decision we just made and why it matters for future work."
- "Before starting, check whether the notes mention files or environments that must not be touched."