Trigger Phrases & Workflows

One of the most underused features of CLAUDE.md is encoding workflows as trigger phrases. The pattern is simple: "When I say X, do Y." You define a short, memorable phrase and map it to a multi-step workflow. When you type that phrase in conversation, Claude recognizes it and executes the full workflow. No skills files, no slash commands, no configuration — just a line in CLAUDE.md that turns a two-word instruction into a twenty-step process.

The key to effective trigger phrases is specificity. "When I say 'ship it', run tsc --noEmit, then npm run lint, then npm test, then git add -A, then create a commit with a descriptive message, then push to the current branch" is a fully operational CI pipeline triggered by two words. "When I say 'morning check', read the TODO.md file, summarize outstanding items, check git status, and report what changed since yesterday" turns a daily ritual into an instant briefing. Each trigger phrase is a named procedure that Claude can execute reliably.

The real power emerges when trigger phrases compose with each other. "When I say 'full deploy', run 'ship it' first, then deploy to staging, run the smoke tests, and if they pass, deploy to production." You are building a dependency tree of named operations, each one a documented, reproducible workflow. This is how you turn CLAUDE.md from a configuration file into an operations manual. Every team member can type the same trigger phrase and get the same result.

## Trigger Phrases

- When I say "ship it": run `tsc --noEmit`, `npm run lint`,
  `npm test`. If all pass, `git add -A`, create a descriptive
  commit message, and push to the current branch.

- When I say "morning check": read TODO.md, summarize
  outstanding items, run `git status`, and report changes
  since yesterday.

- When I say "full deploy": run "ship it" first. If it
  passes, deploy to staging, run smoke tests, and if they
  pass, deploy to production.