| Background-process / subagent lifecycle (read output, cancel) | `TaskOutput`, `TaskStop` — these are distinct from the todo tools above and apply to running shells, agents, and remote sessions |
## Instructions file
When a skill mentions "your instructions file", on Claude Code this is **`CLAUDE.md`**. Claude Code walks up the directory tree from the current working directory and concatenates every `CLAUDE.md` and `CLAUDE.local.md` it finds along the way. Standard locations:
| Scope | Location |
|-------|----------|
| Project (team-shared) | `./CLAUDE.md` or `./.claude/CLAUDE.md` |
CLAUDE.md files can pull in additional content with `@path/to/file` imports (relative or absolute, max five hops deep). Subdirectory `CLAUDE.md` files are also discovered automatically and loaded on-demand when Claude Code reads files in those subdirectories.
Claude Code does **not** read `AGENTS.md` directly. If a project already maintains `AGENTS.md` for other agents, import it from `CLAUDE.md` so both runtimes share the same instructions:
```markdown
@AGENTS.md
## Claude Code
(Claude-Code-specific instructions go here.)
```
For path-scoped rules and larger-project organization, see `.claude/rules/` (rules can be scoped to specific files via `paths` frontmatter and load on demand).
## Personal skills directory
User-level skills live at **`~/.claude/skills/`**. Each skill is a subdirectory containing a `SKILL.md` (with `name` and `description` frontmatter) plus any supporting files. Claude Code does not currently recognize the cross-runtime `~/.agents/skills/` path that Codex, Copilot CLI, and Gemini CLI read; if you're relying on cross-runtime support in the future, verify against the [official skills docs](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/skills).