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Bruno Ashford @brunoashfordSubscribeModule 14 · Lesson 14.5 · 11 min
Staying Current
Build a light monthly routine to follow what changes without losing focus.
Use ← → to move. The marker highlights text and the pencil draws on the slide; navigation locks while you annotate. Undo removes the last mark, Esc exits.
1Pick a few trusted sources
Follow the official Claude Code documentation and release notes, the Anthropic announcements, and one or two practitioners you trust. Unfollow anyone whose content is mostly hype. Fewer sources, read properly, beat twenty skimmed ones.
2Keep Claude Code updated
Native installs update automatically in the background. You can check your version and trigger an update manually when you want the latest features. After an update, run your most important skills once to confirm nothing changed.
claude --version
claude update3Run a monthly what-changed review
Once a month, spend 30 minutes asking one question: does anything new make one of my existing skills simpler, safer or cheaper? Only then consider new capabilities. Improving what already works usually beats adding something new.
Search the official Claude Code documentation and release notes for changes in the last 30 days. Compare them with my setup (CLAUDE.md, skills, subagents, hooks, plugins and routines in this project). List only the changes that would make one of my existing workflows simpler, safer or cheaper, with the specific file to update and the benefit. Ignore everything else.4Test before you adopt
When something new looks useful, try it on a copy or a single low-risk task first, measure it the Module 12 way, and only then roll it into the team plugin. New does not mean better for your business.
5Keep a change log
Add a short dated line to a changelog file every time you change a skill, a rule or a routine, and why. Six months from now, this log is how you and your team will understand why the system works the way it does.
AI tools change every week. New features, new models, new plugins, and a constant stream of people online claiming everything you built last month is now obsolete. If you chase all of it, you will never finish anything.
The good news: the method you learned (context, skills, specialist agents, approval gates, measurement) changes slowly. Only the buttons change fast. You need a small routine that catches what matters to your business and ignores the rest.
Key points
- The method changes slowly, the buttons change fast.
- Few trusted sources, read properly.
- Monthly review: does anything new improve what already works?
- Test on a low-risk task before adopting, and log every change.
Avoid
- Rebuilding your system every time a new feature is announced.
- Following hype accounts instead of official documentation.
- Updating and never re-testing your key skills.
- Keeping no record of why things were changed.
A law firm's operations manager blocks the first Monday of each month for 30 minutes. She runs the what-changed prompt, reads the short list, and picks at most one improvement. Over six months that routine replaced a clumsy manual step in the deadline reminders, added a safer permission rule, and cut a report routine's run time. None of it required chasing headlines.