DC CAP Enterprise AI  ·  Week 3

Stop re-explaining.
Give your context a place to live.

You retype the same setup every week: your role, the program, the voice, the doc. A Project holds all of it and loads it into every conversation you start inside.

Week 3 of 8 About 30 min here, plus the tasks you run in Claude · at your pace Nothing to turn in
Week 3 · the setup

Here's how Week 3 goes

For two weeks you've packed the window by hand; this week you build a place that comes pre-packed.

1Count the tax: the setup you retype every week
2See a Project's two parts: instructions and knowledge
3Build one for a single lane of your work
4Keep it true: an owner, a rhythm, the gate

Week 0's tour marked the Projects door "Later" and promised you'd build one in Week 3. This is that week: a Project is a place, and you build yours today.

Move 1 · the problem

The re-explaining tax

Every fresh chat starts empty, so the setup falls on you, again and again.

Tap everything you find yourself typing or re-attaching each week, and watch the minutes add up.

What do you retype? Tap all that apply.

Your weekly tax

0 minNothing selected yet.

Tap items on the left and watch what the re-explaining costs you.

Your Week 1 instructions carry a few lines into every chat. A Project carries a whole lane's worth into every chat you open inside it.

Move 2 · the idea

Anatomy of a Project

The place holds exactly two things, and each does a different job.

Part 1 · Instructions

How to behave in this lane

You met the system prompt in Week 1. This is yours: voice, audience, format, and standing rules, written once for one slice of your work.

Part 2 · Knowledge

What to know

Reference files every chat inside can read: the partner list, a style sample, the program one-pager. Each file gets checked before it goes in: nothing that identifies a scholar or family.

Every chat inside starts with both already in the window.

Move 3 · the doing

Build one

Pick the lane where you pay this tax most often and build the place today.

  1. Pick one lane of your work. A program, a partner cycle, a report you own. Coaches: a campus-support lane works well (office contacts, resource guides, style samples; never scholar records). One lane, one Project.
  2. Create the Project. In Claude, open Projects in the left sidebar, choose New Project, and name it for the lane.
  3. Write the instructions. Fill the template below and paste it into the instructions box on the Project's own page.
  4. Add 2–3 knowledge files, checked first. Upload them from the same Project page, and open each one before it goes in: aggregates and internal material only, nothing identifying a scholar or family, and nothing confidential to a partner or funder. No files handy? Build with instructions only and add them later; the Project works without them.
  5. Run your first task inside it. Two more before the week ends; the Your turn box below shows how.
The instruction template

Fill the brackets, paste it into your Project's instructions, and keep the last line word for word.

You support [your role] at DC CAP, a college-access nonprofit in Washington, DC. Work in this Project is [the lane: what you produce here and who it serves]. [Audience: who most drafts are for.] [Voice: two or three plain adjectives, or point at a knowledge file that shows it.] [Format: what done looks like, including length and what to lead with.] [Standing rules: anything true of every task in this lane.] Never include anything that could point to one scholar or family; describe situations without identifying details.
The payoff

Here is a Project built for a lane that really exists: updates on this AI program to KPMG, the funder behind it. You briefed this same update by hand in Week 2; here the setup is already standing. Its instructions read, in part: "Drafts here are for our funder's program team. Voice: warm, professional, direct. Format: short email that leads with what shipped." Knowledge holds the program one-pager and the last two updates. Watch what a two-line ask gets back.

YouDraft the August update for the KPMG program team. Lead with Week 3 opening.
ClaudeSubject: August update: Week 3 is open

Hello [contact name],

Week 3 opened Monday: every DC CAP team is building its first Claude Project, week three of the eight-week program. Weeks 0 through 2 stay open for anyone catching up after the July pause, and the capstone window closes September 25. Happy to walk you through the site any time.

[Your name]

The ask was two lines. The audience, the voice, the program dates, and the format came from context already standing in the Project. Your lane works the same way: a report you own, a partner cycle, a recurring update.

Your turn:
  1. Open your new Project and bring a real task from your lane.
  2. Ask in two lines, the way you'd ask a colleague who already knows the background.
  3. Read the draft against your instructions and knowledge. Where it missed, sharpen the instructions once, and every future chat inherits the fix.
Run three tasks this way before the week ends; by the third, you open the chat and just ask.
Move 4 · the upkeep

Keep it true

A Project keeps whatever you put in it, including the parts that stop being true.

Claude reads an old file with the same confidence as a fresh one, and nothing in the answer looks wrong.

Spot the failure

Say a knowledge file saved last cycle still lists last year's preference deadline. What happens to the drafts in this Project?

Show what happens →

Every draft cites last year's deadline, confidently, until someone notices. Nobody typed the wrong date this month; the file did, in every window the Project opened. The fix takes a minute: delete the old file, add the current one, and date-stamp it.

Four habits keep a Project honest:

Name an ownerOne person answers for what this Project knows. Today that's you; it becomes a team decision in Week 5
Set a refresh rhythmA monthly ten-minute pass beats a yearly surprise
Date-stamp every file"Partner list · June 2026" says at a glance how old the file is
Delete the supersededThe old version stays in the window until you remove it
The gate from Week 1 counts double here. A pasted line enters one window; a knowledge file enters every window this Project ever opens, so check every file and keep anything identifying a scholar out. The data rules you signed settle any close call. If a file slips through anyway, remove it from the Project and follow Week 1's incident steps.
Your win

What you can do now

A Project is a place. Next week you write a Skill, a method you load on demand, and you'll use the two together.

Week 1Your instructionsA few lines, every chat
NowA ProjectA lane's worth of standing context
Week 4A SkillA method you load on demand

Two of the 4Ds carried this week:

Delegation

You chose the lane, and the knowledge worth handing over, and left the rest out.

Diligence

You gated every file, named an owner, and set the rhythm that keeps the place true.

This is your own check that the week landed. It stays in your browser — nobody else sees it.

Support, whenever you need it

Bring your Project to Preston's office hours, 9–10 AM ET any weekday: the instructions you wrote, or the draft that came back better because of them. Extension exercises land on this site every few Fridays.

What's nextWeek 4 · Skills: context that repeats
Start Week 4 →
Optional

Under the hood

Skip it and lose nothing.  Three questions people usually ask about Projects.

What exactly loads into the window inside a Project?

The Project's instructions and knowledge files sit in the window before your first message arrives, alongside Claude's own standing instructions and your personal ones. The rest fills the way you learned in Weeks 1 and 2: your messages, your attachments, the conversation so far. Knowledge takes up room in the window, so a lean set of current files serves you better than a big archive. Load a big archive anyway and Claude stops loading everything and starts searching your files, pulling in only the parts that look relevant to each ask.

How is a Project different from my instructions for Claude?

Your instructions for Claude travel into every chat: a few lines about who you are and how you like output. Project instructions apply only inside their lane and go much deeper, and since Claude sees both inside a Project, keep the personal ones general and let the Project carry the specifics. Memory is different again: a few stable facts about you in every chat, while a Project carries a whole lane, only inside its own door.

Can my team share one?

Where the workspace allows shared Projects, several people can work inside the same standing context, and the whole team stops re-explaining at once. Sharing multiplies the payoff and the stale-file risk together, which is why Week 5 treats curation as a team job with a named owner. For now, build yours solo and get the habits down.