A Claude Code rule that ends each answer with a mark showing whose turn it is

Today's file is a rule for Claude Code. A long answer ends, and you read it to the last line to find out whether Claude is done, is waiting for something, or is waiting for you. With this rule every answer that hands work back to you ends with one mark that says whose turn it is.

How it works

There are four marks, and Claude checks them in order. If there is work left that Claude can do itself, it does it in the same answer instead of stopping; 🛠️ goes at the end only when something outside its control stopped it, with what is left named next to it. ⏳: Claude started something that will bring its result back by itself, such as a long build, and will see it through. ✏️: you are needed next, to decide, allow, choose, give access or do something by hand. ✅: the work is done, and nothing follows the mark. Before ✅ Claude rereads its answer: a question, options to choose from or a request to you turn it into ✏️. A plain question gets a plain answer with no mark.

In our test in four languages, a notice about new opening hours saved to a file ended with ✅ eight times out of eight, two names for a coffee shop "and I will decide myself" ended with ✏️, and "what is 17*23" and "what does backup.sh do?" got no mark. Without the rule there was no mark at all. In English we also asked Claude to add a check to a backup script, and to draft an email to a supplier with a mail-sending script right next to it: it did the job, put ✅, and did not run the script or send the email. If you also have the urgency rule from 5 October, the two do not clash: the colored marks stay at the start of each item, and this one goes at the very end.

What to change

The marks are plain characters, so swap them for any you like. The line about an ordinary conversation decides how often the rule fires: in our test a request with no file, such as "write a short notice", got ✅ in some runs, ✏️ in others because Claude offered to change the tone, and no mark when Claude took it for an ordinary conversation. That is why the check in the note below saves the notice to a file. We changed two things. We added one line: the mark goes only into answers in the chat, never into files, code, commit messages or output a program reads (JSON, CSV). Without it, in Russian and in Serbian one run of three put ✅ after a JSON answer we asked for with "nothing else", and a script reading the output of a claude -p run on a schedule would break on it. With it, 12 JSON answers of 12 in four languages came back clean, and the todo.md and notice.txt that Claude wrote had no marks. A plain text report from a scheduled claude -p run may still end with ✅. And to the note's first check we added "and save it to notice.txt": without a file it gave ✅ in 3 runs of 8.

Install

The rule goes at the end of ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md, the file with your instructions for all projects; the note below has the exact request. That folder holds Claude's own settings, so Claude asks before it edits the file: answer Yes. Then close Claude Code and open it again, because the file is read at startup. The check from the note below: ask for the notice saved to notice.txt and get ✅, then ask for two names you will pick from yourself and get ✏️.