A note from the author: Just before this post was set to be published, a new feature was released on Claude Code that makes this post somewhat obsolete: Claude’s new “Concise” output style.
I was sick of scanning through walls of text each time I asked Claude Code a question. Skills like I have ADHD have been invented to cut down on the rambling, but I wanted to change Claude Code’s defaults, not invoke something occasionally. Then I found output styles, markdown files that control how the agent talks to you without changing its coding instructions.
Create an output style file.
For the purposes of this post, we’ll talk about how to create an output style for a specific project (you could do so for your entire computer). Make a directory called output-styles in your project’s .claude directory. The full path will be project-root/.claude/output-styles/. Within that directory, create a markdown file with a name describing the style (the file I created is called terse.md).
Add Frontmatter to the top of the file, defining metadata about this output style. Include the name (you’ll use this name in settings later), a brief description (you’ll see this description when switching styles), and importantly, keep-coding-instructions: true. That setting needs to be true unless you actually want Claude Code to write code differently.
Below the Frontmatter, write some rules describing how you want Claude Code to communicate. Here is my “terse” output style file.
---
name: terse
description: Answers only. Minimal prose, no unrequested explanation or preamble.
keep-coding-instructions: true
---
## Response rules
- Default to 1-3 lines. One-word answers are great if they are true.
- No preamble, no postamble, no summary of what you just did.
## When to say more
- A direct request: "why", "explain", "walk me through", "in detail".Set a default style for your project.
Grab the name you chose in the previous step (the Frontmatter name, not the filename), and use it for the outputStyle value in project-root/.claude/settings.json. Once you have this setting, both Claude Code CLI and Claude Code Desktop will respect it. This update will take effect once you start a fresh chat in your project. Other projects will fall back to the default style.
{
// ...other settings
"outputStyle": "terse"
}
Switch between output styles on different chats.
Switching styles in the middle of a chat only works in Claude Code CLI. Claude Code Desktop does not expose this setting. To switch styles, run /config, choose Output Style, then use your arrows to select the name of the style you created. Claude Code will begin using that style right after you exit the config editor. The config tool edits project-root/.claude/settings.local.json. This local file is only meant for your machine and it overrides the settings file we modified earlier. If you want to fall back to your project default, remove the outputStyle line from settings.local.json.
Note: Claude Code might suggest that you use an /output-style command, but this command is no longer supported. It was deprecated in v2.1.73 and replaced with /config.
Conclusion: Feel free to change the agent’s defaults.
Since using this style, Claude Code often responds in half the time, with one-third the words (more on this in another post). It’s easier for me to read these short responses, and coding with it is more fun, too. Many of the defaults your agentic tool comes with can be changed. Maybe start by changing whatever annoys you most.