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Patterson Academy

Output styles and the status line

Output styles adapt Claude Code beyond software engineering. Each markdown file in output-styles/ appends a section to the system prompt — by default replacing the built-in coding task instructions (keep them with keep-coding-instructions: true). Built-ins Explanatory and Learning ship with Claude Code.

~/.claude/output-styles/teaching.md
---
description: Explains reasoning and asks you to implement small pieces
keep-coding-instructions: true
---


After completing each task, add a brief "Why this approach" note
explaining the key design decision.


When a change is under 10 lines, ask the user to implement it
themselves by leaving a TODO(human) marker instead of writing it.

Select a style via /config or the outputStyle setting; changes take effect next session (the system prompt is fixed at startup for caching). The status line (statusLine in settings) customizes the bar at the bottom — context usage, costs, git status.

Check your understanding

Section titled “Check your understanding”

Question 1Why do output style changes only apply next session?