NORTH-STAR.md
Career-level direction. The why behind the projects. Optional, but useful if you have multiple businesses or a clear direction beyond any single project.
# NORTH-STAR.md Where my career or life is heading at the highest level. Sits at the workspace root. The why behind every project. ## Where I'm heading One paragraph. The big picture in plain language. Not a slogan. What does the next 3 to 5 years look like if it goes well? ## Why The reason behind the direction. Not "to make money", that's an outcome. The actual motivation that holds when things get hard. ## Phase model The roadmap in stages. ### Phase 1: [Name] Where I am now. What this phase looks like in practice. How I know I have completed it. ### Phase 2: [Name] The middle phase. ### Phase 3: [Name or TBD] The phase I am heading toward. [TBD] is fine if I do not know yet. ## Numbers Specific targets. Money, customers, time, output, audience size. Whatever actually matters for my work. ## Principles The values I will not trade off, even under pressure. The things that make decisions easy when everything else is unclear. ## What I am not building Equally important. Defining what I am NOT doing keeps me from drifting toward easier-but-wrong work. ## How I decide The rules that resolve hard choices. When two paths both look reasonable, what wins? ## Active projects (and how they fit) Each project I am running, and why it exists relative to the overall direction. If a project doesn't fit, it's a sunset candidate. ## Review cadence When I will come back to this file. Yearly is fine. - Last reviewed: [Date] - Next review: [Date]
Why this works
This is the file that explains the why behind every project you work on. It sits at the root of your workspace, separate from any single project, and Claude reads it when strategic questions come up.
If you have one project, you do not need a NORTH-STAR.md. Your CLAUDE.md priorities and your project’s CONTEXT.md tell the whole story. Skip this template.
If you have multiple projects, businesses, or directions, this is the umbrella they sit under. Without it, every cross-project decision happens in a vacuum. Should I take on a fourth business? Should I sunset one of these? Why am I working on this and not that? NORTH-STAR.md answers those questions.
The “what I am not building” section is the most-skipped, most-useful one. Defining what stays out of scope is what stops you from drifting. The first time you say no to a tempting opportunity that does not fit, this section is what makes that easy.
This file changes rarely. Once or twice a year at most. The whole point is that it is stable enough to be a reference point when other things shift. If you find yourself updating it monthly, either the direction was wrong to start with, or you are confusing it with CLAUDE.md (which IS supposed to update monthly).