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Every fact you give Claude has a home, and the home decides its lifespan. Say it in a chat and it lives exactly as long as that chat. Put it in a project’s knowledge and it is present in every conversation inside that project. Let Claude’s memory capture it and it follows you across your own chats. Point a connector at the document your team actually maintains and it stays true even after the fact changes. Four homes, four lifespans:
  • This chat. Fastest to use, first to disappear. Right for anything you only need right now.
  • Project knowledge. Files and instructions attached to a project. Loaded into view for every conversation there, and shared if the project is shared.
  • Memory and preferences. Claude’s notes about you: how you like answers formatted, what you work on. Yours alone, across your chats.
  • Connected sources. Drive, SharePoint, and the rest. The fact stays in the tool your team edits, and Claude fetches the current version when asked.

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Run the lifetime test

Take one sentence your team relies on: “Renewal offers must be approved by Dana before they go out.” Park it in all four homes at once, then move time forward and watch which copies survive.
The pattern to notice: the further right you go on that timeline, the fewer homes still hold the truth. Chats forget, memory is private, project knowledge goes quietly stale, and only the maintained source keeps up with reality. None of the homes is best. They are different tools for different lifespans.

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Choose the home in three questions

Needed only for this task, right now?Say it in the chat and let it go.
Needed in every future conversation on this work?Project knowledge or project instructions.
About you and how you like to work?Preferences and memory.
Owned by the team and changes over time?Keep it in the source system, reach it through a connector.

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The compounding effect

Here is why this matters beyond tidiness. Re-explaining context is a tax you pay on every single conversation: five minutes of setup, a few thousand tokens, and the risk of forgetting something each time. Context placed in a durable home is paid for once. A project with a good brief and the right three documents makes its tenth conversation as informed as its first, with zero setup. Tonight, move one fact. Find something you have typed into Claude more than twice, and give it a permanent home.