To 10x AI coding agents you need to *obsess* over context engineering above all else. Great Context = Great Plan = Great Result AI models are geniuses who start from scratch every time. So onboard them by going overboard on context. Use this prompt as a starting point.

It is the single highest leverage thing you can do to improve perf of coding agents. Go even further by building them tools to effectively search and build context - more on this later. I use the below prompt as a /onboard custom command in Claude Code when starting new tasks. - # Onboard You are given the following context: $ARGUMENTS ## Instructions "AI models are geniuses who start from scratch on every task." - Noam Brown Your job is to "onboard" yourself to the current task. Do this by: - Using ultrathink - Exploring the codebase - Asking me questions if needed The goal is to get you fully prepared to start working on the task. Take as long as you need to get yourself ready. Overdoing it is better than underdoing it. Record everything in a .claude/tasks/[TASK_ID]/onboarding.md file. This file will be used to onboard you to the task in a new session if needed, so make sure it's comprehensive.

The @tobi “Context Engineering” post was so so so needed. We need he and Karpathy level figures to help shift minds here. Puts focus on where real gains can be had. The “I’ll tip you $100 if you get this right” prompt engineering era is over. It’s the context engineering era.

This is also one of those “boring & seems obvious” tips… But people *rarely* do it in practice. it’s funny how those tips are always the ones that tend to drive performance most. In a funny way, agents are very keep-it-simple-stupid. The dumb, obvious thing often works best.