Add context file for claude/ai for common hints on how to develop plugins

[byrongamatos]

Restored from slopsmith/slopsmith#592 — original issue, opened by @topkoa on 2026-04-14.
[restored-from: slopsmith/slopsmith#592]

It might not be a bad idea to start curating a CLAUDE.md in this repo.

This could help others more easily add features.

An example of this is the split screen plugin, it requires setting up factory functions if something can be compatible with the split screen view in the plugin, for new functionality that wont break that plugin, design constraints like this could be added to a context file...

Thoughts?

[byrongamatos]

@byrongamatos commented on 2026-04-17:

Good idea. I'll bias toward a single CLAUDE.md in the core slopsmith repo that documents the plugin contract — factory convention, the window.highway / upcoming window.slopsmith API surface, manifest layout, and cross-plugin compatibility constraints (like the splitscreen factory requirement you're pushing in slopsmith/slopsmith#583). That way plugin authors have one source of truth instead of N-way drift.

Per-plugin CLAUDE.md files only where a plugin has unique constraints beyond the core contract. For tabview specifically, if the factory refactor lands there, a short CLAUDE.md noting that one constraint would make sense.

Will queue this alongside slopsmith/slopsmith#583 — the factory convention is the main thing a plugin dev needs to know and that's still being pinned down in that thread.