[dccote]

Summary

Adds a top-level CLAUDE.md documenting the project conventions that aren't derivable from the code or covered by the existing README docs.

The goal is to let an LLM-assisted contributor produce code that matches existing conventions on the first try, rather than having to derive them from scattered evidence across the codebase.

What's in it

• Style — camelCase everywhere, no docstrings on obvious code, no inline what-it-does comments, no wildcard imports in new code, descriptive parameter names.
• Running things — python3 (not python), the explicit-filename pytest workflow, the hardware-skip test convention from PRs Fixing tests #65/Hamamatsu photon counter #66.
• Architecture — the PhysicalDevice / DeviceManager / NotificationCenter triad and the communication layer.
• Device families table — folder, base class, and required do* methods for each family.
• Adding a new device — a 7-step recipe pointing at labjackdevice.py as the canonical reference.
• Patterns to avoid — the half-finished commands dict (only IntegraDevice and EchoDevice use it), the bloated oceaninsight.py, wildcard imports.
• Branch hygiene — master not main, per-bug commits with Problem/Solution bodies (template: PR Fix 10 latent bugs uncovered by static review #74).

Editorial calls worth noting

• The commands dict is documented as experimental. New devices are told not to adopt it until the send-side-migration branch lands. Flip this if you'd rather push new devices toward the pattern.
• labjackdevice.py is the canonical reference for adding a device. Becomes stale if that file regresses.
• oceaninsight.py is called out by name as a file not to copy from.

Test plan

• Visual review of CLAUDE.md content
• Confirm Claude Code (or another LLM agent) actually loads this file when working in the repo
• Optional: sanity-check that recommendations match the codebase as of merging this PR

🤖 Generated with Claude Code