Rafter vs a git repo
A repo full of docs — CLAUDE.md, runbooks, ADRs — is versioned, reviewed and free. For repo-scoped conventions it is exactly right. Rafter is for the knowledge that has to leave the repo.
Where the repo is the right choice
Code-adjacent rules belong next to the code. A CLAUDE.md in the repo is read natively by coding agents, reviewed like everything else, and versioned by the best version control there is. Free, too.
If the knowledge is about this codebase and the only people who need it are the people with a checkout, stop there — that's the correct tool.
Where it runs out
Reach: only tools with the checkout see it, and only inside that repo. Claude on the web has never read your CLAUDE.md; neither has the ops person who needs the same client fact.
Retrieval: one growing file gets loaded whole into every session, relevant or not — you pay for the entire file in context, every time, instead of searching for the two facts the task needs.
Write-back: capturing a learning means a commit and a PR, so in practice it doesn't happen mid-task. And with ten repos you get ten slowly diverging copies of the same conventions.
| A git repo | Rafter | |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | Tools with this repo's checkout | Every MCP tool, in and out of the editor |
| Who contributes | Anyone who can write a PR | Anyone on the team — or their AI, mid-task |
| Retrieval | The whole file, every session | Search, then fetch what the task needs — with what it cites |
| Across repos | Copy it around, watch it drift | One workspace |
| Write-back | A commit and a review | add_memory, ten seconds, versioned |
| Versioning | git — excellent | Versioned artifacts (git keeps the code) |
If it's about this repo, commit it. If it's about your team, Rafter it.
Using both
This isn't either-or. Keep CLAUDE.md for the repo's own rules — build commands, code style, the local gotchas. Put what spans repos, tools and people in Rafter. The ready-made Rafter skill even teaches Claude Code the order: repo rules from the repo, team knowledge from Rafter.
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