HACKER Q&A
📣 classicpsy

How to Handle Claude's Stubbornness?


I’ve been running into this issue with Claude (in browser and claude code) where it is being stubborn many times.

It will refrain from obeying what I say or suggest. Instead, it comes up with its own analogy and starts suggesting and implementing that logic. Even when I already know its going in wrong path and I have proposed the direction for the same problem.

Many times I’ve had to explicitly tell it: don’t think, don’t force your analogy, just implement what I am putting in front of you. Still this does not stick with it always.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How are you handling it?

  👤 ankarhem Accepted Answer ✓
Haven't really experienced it besides in long contexts. Usually keep it concise. Something like:

``` We're building feature X.

- You might need `a`, `b`, `c`. (any libraries, url documentation etc)

- The requirements are:

  - x

  - y

  - z
```

Any negatives (prevent going down a path) would go into requirement.

This would be a prompt to sisyphus if small or prometheus if big. (Using opencode + oh-my-openagent).

If I believe the agent won't understand what it is supposed to do or if there are multiple solutions of which only some are allowed I add "DO NOT make or edit any business rules before asking me".

👤 LatencyKills
I use a series of stop hook [0] scripts. For example, I have a script [1] that forces Claude to execute tests whenever code files are changed. The stop hook runs automatically and will force Claude to continue working until the script passes.

I also have a script that forces Claude to generate a summary of work [2] if it hadn't done so on it's own.

[0]: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/hooks

[1]: https://gist.github.com/Looking4OffSwitch/c3d5848935fec5ac3b...

[2]: https://gist.github.com/Looking4OffSwitch/3b13b65e40284be899...