All coding projects initialize the appropriate AI ops project
Introduction
To make AI-assisted work reliable and consistent across the team, every coding project needs the same baseline configuration: project instructions, code review skills, platform-specific rules, and shared prompts. We maintain this baseline in the ops project, claude-ops.
Standardizing on it means a dev moving between projects finds the same conventions, AI tooling behaves predictably, and improvements made in one place reach every site without per-project rework.
Decision
Every new coding project initializes the AI ops project that matches its stack:
- Drupal projects utilize
claude-ops' Drupal CMS layer. - WordPress projects utilize
claude-ops' WordPress CMS layer.
Initialization uses the standard installation workflow so projects track the current version and pull updates centrally rather than copying configuration into each site. The ops project supplies CLAUDE.md instructions, code review skills, platform-specific rules, and the shared prompt and skills library.
Any deviation from the standard configuration is documented in the individual project.
Context
This is done for several reasons:
- A shared baseline makes AI-assisted development more reliable. Tools follow the same rules and review standards on every project.
- The self-updating mechanism lets us improve the ops project once and have every site benefit, instead of updating individual repos by hand.
- Devs moving between projects do not have to relearn conventions. Onboarding to a new project is faster.
- The ops project is where shared prompts, skills, and platform quirks live, so it is the natural home for organizational knowledge rather than per-project copies that drift apart.
Consequences
- Every project has a consistent, documented AI configuration from day one.
- Updates to code review skills, prompts, and platform rules propagate to all sites through the self-update mechanism rather than manual per-project edits.
- The ops project becomes the canonical place to contribute reusable prompts and skills, so knowledge accumulates instead of scattering.
- New capabilities (test generation, a11y audit, quality-standards checks) ship to all projects as they are added to the ops project.
- Teams must keep the ops project healthy and versioned, since a problem there now affects every project that tracks it.
- Deviations are allowed but must be written down, which keeps the standard meaningful while leaving room for genuine project needs.
Exceptions
- A project with a client contract or environment constraint that conflicts with the standard configuration may deviate, with the deviation documented in the project.
- Short-lived spikes, prototypes, and throwaway proofs of concept do not require initialization, though using the ops project is encouraged where it is low cost.
Additional Resources
None