A few short questions, plain English, no jargon. Your answers become Claude's standing instructions.
Which table or dataset are you documenting? Examples: "orders table", "events table", "user_profiles view".
Who will read this dictionary? "All stakeholders" means jargon-free descriptions; "Engineering team" can include technical implementation notes.
How much detail per field? "Full" is best for high-traffic or frequently misunderstood tables. "Brief" works for a quick schema reference.