What you will be able to do
- Explain how organization instructions and individual user instructions interact when both are set, and which one wins a conflict
- Update or remove organization instructions, and allow for the delay before a change takes effect
- Check that a change works by testing it in a fresh conversation across several kinds of question
- Review standing instructions regularly and remove outdated ones so Claude's responses stay focused
Key concept
Instructions as living configuration — Standing instructions are not written once and then left alone. When the organization's needs change, you revise them, test the revision in a new conversation, and delete whatever no longer applies. An outdated rule keeps shaping every answer until someone removes it.
1.Two layers of instructions, maintained by different people
Before you change an instruction, you need to know which layer it lives in. On Team and Enterprise plans, Claude can carry organization instructions that apply to everyone, plus each person's own individual instructions. The two layers have different owners, different reach and different visibility. So "who should fix this?" depends on the layer where the behaviour comes from.
| Level | Set by | Scope | Visibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organization instructions | Owners and Primary Owners | All people in your organization, every conversation | Only Owners and above can view or edit |
| Individual user instructions | Each user | That individual’s conversations only | Only that user can view or edit |
The layers are not equals. If an individual instruction directly contradicts an organization instruction, Claude follows the organization one. The documentation's example: the organization says to respond in formal English and a user asks for a casual tone, so Claude responds formally. Organization instructions do not replace individual ones, though. Individual instructions still govern anything the organization layer says nothing about. This matters when you maintain the layers. A user who changes their personal instructions to get around an organization rule will see no effect. The fix has to come from an Owner, in the organization layer.
Sources1
2.Making a change: edit, save, wait, or clear
Only an Owner or higher can change organization instructions. The steps are simple: open Organization settings > Organization and access, find the Organization instructions section, edit the text area and save. The text area holds at most 3,000 characters. That limit forces choices: adding a rule may mean removing or shortening another one. There is also a size reason to keep them short. Organization instructions go into every message that everyone in the organization sends, so each extra line has a cost across the whole organization.
Two details of timing and removal catch people out. First, a saved change is not immediate: it can take up to an hour to take effect across Claude products. If you test straight after saving and see the old behaviour, that does not prove the edit failed. Second, there is no separate delete action. To remove the instructions completely, you clear the text area and save.
Sources1
3.Verify every change in a fresh conversation
Saving a change is not the end of the job. The guidance is to start a new conversation after saving and check that Claude follows the instructions. Try a few different kinds of question so you see the rule working across a range of topics, not just the one prompt you had in mind when you wrote it.
Testing matters because instruction precedence is not guaranteed in every case. It relies on prompt-level instructions, and the documentation warns that behaviour may vary in rare edge cases where instructions directly contradict each other. A second risk comes from inside the organization layer itself. When you add a rule, check it against the rules already there. If organization instructions contradict each other, Claude may not follow either one reliably. So each change calls for a quick read of the whole set, not only the new line.
The two rules pull against each other, and contradictory organization instructions may mean Claude follows neither reliably. The owner should read the set as a whole before saving. After the change takes effect, they should test in a new conversation with several kinds of question to see how Claude actually behaves.
Sources1
4.Review and prune on a schedule
Instructions go stale in the background. Suppose a team moves to a new product name, or a referral contact changes, or a domain-context line (such as "when users mention 'claims', they mean insurance claims") stops being true. The instruction keeps applying to every conversation until someone edits it. That is why the documentation treats regular review as part of the job. Revisit the instructions as the organization's needs change, and remove outdated ones so that Claude's responses stay focused. Removing an instruction is maintenance too, not just adding one.
Maintenance has limits. No edit to the organization layer can switch off Claude's built-in safety guidelines or content policies, so a review that tries to "unlock" behaviour will not work. The sources for this lesson document review and pruning for instructions. They do not describe a procedure for maintaining uploaded project knowledge, so this lesson makes no claims about that process.
A benefits administrator keeps last year's policy handbook in a project's knowledge base. Claude keeps quoting the old deductible, and the administrator has now rewritten the question five different ways. What is the greatest concern here?
Correct answer: A — The answers are confidently wrong from an out-of-date source, and no amount of rephrasing will correct them.
- A. Correct. When the uploaded source is stale, the output is wrong at the source and reprompting cannot repair it.
- B. Length is not the issue; the figure being quoted is present in the document and simply out of date.
- C. Usage allowance affects how much you can do, not the accuracy of a quoted figure.
- D. The wrong figure matches the superseded handbook, which points at the source rather than the prompt.
Exam traps
Each one states something that sounds right. Open it to see what is actually true.
1.A user's individual instruction overrides the organization instruction on the same point, because it is more specific to that user.Why is that wrong?
When the two directly conflict, Claude favours the organization-level instruction. Individual instructions apply only where the organization instructions are silent.
Covered in Two layers of instructions, maintained by different people
2.A saved change to organization instructions applies straight away, so seeing no change in an immediate test means the edit failed.Why is that wrong?
Changes can take up to an hour to take effect across Claude products, so wait before concluding the edit did not work.
Covered in Making a change: edit, save, wait, or clear
3.An Owner can update organization instructions to relax Claude's safety behaviour for their team.Why is that wrong?
Organization instructions cannot disable built-in safety guidelines or content policies. Instructions that conflict with Claude's core training are not followed.
Covered in Review and prune on a schedule
Sources
Every claim above is drawn from one of these pages, quoted as it was written on the date shown.
- 1.
“When both are set, organization instructions take precedence.”
↩︎ Two layers of instructions, maintained by different people“Individual instructions still apply for anything the organization instructions don’t address.”
↩︎ Two layers of instructions, maintained by different people“The maximum length is 3,000 characters.”
↩︎ Making a change: edit, save, wait, or clear“To remove instructions entirely, clear the text area”
↩︎ Making a change: edit, save, wait, or clear“Organization instructions are included in every message sent by everyone in your organization, so shorter instructions help keep conversations efficient.”
↩︎ Making a change: edit, save, wait, or clear“After saving, start a new conversation to verify Claude is following your instructions.”
↩︎ Verify every change in a fresh conversation“If your organization instructions contradict each other, Claude may not follow either one reliably.”
↩︎ Verify every change in a fresh conversation“In rare edge cases involving directly contradictory instructions, behavior may vary.”
↩︎ Verify every change in a fresh conversation“Removing outdated instructions keeps Claude’s responses focused.”
↩︎ Review and prune on a schedule“Our team works in healthcare claims processing.”
↩︎ Review and prune on a schedule“Review and update regularly. As your organization’s needs change, revisit your instructions to make sure they’re still relevant.”
↩︎ Key concept“If an individual instruction directly contradicts an organization instruction, Claude favors the organization-level instruction.”
↩︎ Exam trap 1“Changes may take up to an hour to take effect across Claude products.”
↩︎ Exam trap 2“Organization preferences can't disable Claude's built-in safety guidelines or content policies.”
↩︎ Exam trap 3 - 2.https://support.claude.com/en/articles/14553240-give-claude-context-claude-md-and-better-promptsOfficial docs
“Quarterly skim — delete anything stale, since outdated instructions are worse than none.”
↩︎ Review and prune on a schedule“Treat it like a living onboarding doc, not a spec.”
↩︎ Review and prune on a schedule