Configuration and Knowledge Management — study note
Configuration and Knowledge Management — study note
Domain 5 of the Claude Certified Associate – Foundations exam. Its four objectives ask you to:
- configure Claude projects with instructions and knowledge sources;
- manage uploaded knowledge and connectors, such as Google Drive and Gmail;
- create effective system-level instructions;
- inform, maintain and update Claude configurations, knowledge sources and instructions.
Projects
| Part of a project | What it does |
|---|---|
| Knowledge | Used across all chats in the project |
| Instructions | Used for all chats in the project |
| Chat history | With memory and chat search off, kept to its own chat |
| Name and description | For people only: Claude does not have access to them |
Project instructions (listed as a paid-plan feature on one help-center page) work best for general context, key guidelines and Claude’s role. Keep them concise, and reserve task-specific instructions for the chat itself.
Sharing (Team and Enterprise plans). A project shared only with invited people is private. Members get “Can view” (see and chat, no editing) or “Can edit” (change instructions and knowledge, update member settings). A public project can be viewed and used by everyone in the organization, but each person’s chats stay private unless they share them. If an owner turns project sharing off, projects already shared stay shared, and public projects become private.
Knowledge and connectors
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| A file for one conversation | Upload it to that chat |
| A file every chat in a project needs | Upload it to the project’s files |
| A picture inside a non-PDF document | Add what matters as text: Claude extracts text only |
| A large project on a paid plan | Retrieval switches on automatically; name files clearly, group related ones, and name the document you mean |
| A service Claude should use | Owner enables it (Team and Enterprise), you sign in (or Enterprise-managed auth, in beta, covers you), you toggle it on per chat |
| An action Claude takes in Gmail or Drive | By default, Claude asks for your approval first |
Connectors inherit your permissions: Claude reaches only what you can already open. On Team and Enterprise plans they work only in private projects, and the Google Workspace page says the Drive option for adding project files is disabled for shared projects. Owners can set each action to Always allow, Needs approval or Blocked for everyone. Connectors are token-intensive, so switch off the ones a chat does not need and disconnect services you no longer use.
Instructions
| Level | Applies to |
|---|---|
| Account (your settings) | All your conversations |
| Project | Chats in that project |
| Organization (owners, Team and Enterprise) | Every conversation in the organization |
- Specific: “respond in formal English, no contractions, slang or emojis”, not “be professional”.
- Consistent: contradictory instructions may not be followed reliably.
- Short: organization instructions are included in every message everyone sends.
- Tested: after saving, start a new conversation and try several types of question.
- Precedence: organization instructions take precedence over personal ones, though in rare edge cases of direct contradiction behavior may vary; personal instructions still apply where the organization’s are silent. Organization preferences can’t disable Claude’s built-in safety guidelines.
Maintenance
| Task | How |
|---|---|
| Needs have changed | Revisit instructions; remove outdated ones |
| Files no longer used | Remove them from the project |
| Project finished | Archive it; members, permissions and knowledge are kept |
| Someone should lose access | Remove them in the project’s sharing settings |
| Delete an archived project | Unarchive it first (archived projects can’t currently be deleted) |
| Memory holds something wrong | Edit or delete the topic, or tell Claude what to forget |
| A chat is in the wrong project (Team and Enterprise, memory on) | Move it; each project has its own memory |
Pausing memory keeps it but stops Claude using or adding to it; resetting deletes all memories. Deleting a conversation does not remove memories generated from it. On Team and Enterprise plans, memory is off by default until an owner turns it on.
Sources
- What are projects? — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/9517075-what-are-projects
- How can I create and manage projects? — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/9519177-how-can-i-create-and-manage-projects
- Manage project visibility and sharing — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/9519189-manage-project-visibility-and-sharing
- Upload files to Claude — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8241126-upload-files-to-claude
- Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) for projects — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11473015-retrieval-augmented-generation-rag-for-projects
- How do usage and length limits work? — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11647753-how-do-usage-and-length-limits-work
- How large is the context window on paid Claude plans? — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/8606394-how-large-is-the-context-window-on-paid-claude-plans
- Use connectors to extend Claude’s capabilities — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11176164-use-connectors-to-extend-claude-s-capabilities
- Use Google Workspace connectors — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/10166901-use-google-workspace-connectors
- Understanding Claude’s personalization features — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/10185728-understanding-claude-s-personalization-features
- Set organization instructions — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/14546867-set-organization-instructions
- Use Claude’s chat search and memory to build on previous context — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11817273-use-claude-s-chat-search-and-memory-to-build-on-previous-context