Personal Claude Notes Missing in Your Other Worktree? Import Them From Your Home Folder.

At a glance

• A gitignored CLAUDE.local.md only exists in the worktree where you made it, so a second worktree starts without your notes.
• Keep those notes in one file under your home folder and pull it in with an @ import line.
• Approve the external imports dialog, then confirm the file loaded with /context all.

You keep your sandbox URL and preferred test data in CLAUDE.local.md, which git does not track. Then you open a second git worktree, start Claude there, and it has never heard of any of it.

Why it matters

Anthropic's memory docs describe CLAUDE.local.md as personal project preferences, loaded alongside CLAUDE.md and kept out of git. Because the file is gitignored, it only exists in the worktree where you created it. The fix the docs give is an import. A CLAUDE.md file can pull in other files with @path/to/import, and a path under your home folder resolves to the same file from every worktree.

How to share personal notes across worktrees

We built these steps from Anthropic's docs and have not run them in a live session.

1. Move your personal notes into one file in your home folder. The docs use ~/.claude/my-project-instructions.md as the example name.
2. Add an import line to a memory file that every worktree has. The docs show it under a heading in CLAUDE.md, as a list item reading @~/.claude/my-project-instructions.md.
3. Start Claude Code in a worktree. The first time it meets an import outside your working directory in this project, it shows an approval dialog listing the files. Approve it.
4. Run /context all and look under Memory files to confirm your home folder file loaded.
5. Open a second worktree, start Claude there, and check /context all again.

# We have not run this script end to end on every platform.
# Run it from your repository folder. It only prints, and changes no files.

# Which worktrees does this repository have?
git worktree list

# Does this worktree have a local notes file?
if [ -f CLAUDE.local.md ]; then echo "CLAUDE.local.md is here"; else echo "no CLAUDE.local.md in this worktree"; fi

# Does your home folder notes file exist yet?
if [ -f ~/.claude/my-project-instructions.md ]; then echo "home notes file found"; else echo "no home notes file yet"; fi

# Is there already an import line in CLAUDE.md?
if [ -f CLAUDE.md ]; then grep -l "@~/" CLAUDE.md; fi

claude --version

# Then start claude, approve the external imports dialog, and type at its prompt:
#   /context all

Gotchas

• Decline once and it stays off. The docs say that if you decline the external imports dialog, those imports stay disabled and the dialog does not appear again for that project.
• The dialog is there for shared files. The docs say it exists to protect you from files other people commit to a shared project.
• Spaces need backslashes. A path with a space needs a backslash before each space, and a path wrapped in quotes is not imported at all.
• Backticks turn imports off. Import parsing skips code spans and fenced code blocks, so an import written inside backticks stays plain text.
• Imports do not shrink context. The docs say imported files load with the file that imports them, and can nest up to four hops deep.
• Cowork sessions differ. In Cowork sessions on your desktop, the docs say Claude Code skips imports in user scope files that point outside the session's working folder.

Sources:

• How Claude remembers your project, Claude Code docs

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