Option B removes the identified startup work while deliberately restoring the one source of project context the reviews require. Anthropic documents that --bare skips automatic discovery of hooks, skills, plugins, MCP servers, auto memory, and CLAUDE.md files. It is specifically intended for CI and scripted execution where fast, reproducible startup behavior is more important than loading every locally configured extension.

Because bare mode also skips the root CLAUDE.md, the pipeline must supply that content explicitly. --append-system-prompt-file ./CLAUDE.md loads the standards while retaining Claude Code’s default coding-agent behavior and tool guidance. Option A replaces the default system prompt but does not, by itself, establish the same minimal startup path as --bare; replacement also discards valuable default coding instructions. Option C can work technically but duplicates repository policy inside every pipeline invocation and creates configuration drift. Option D improves prompt-cache reuse by relocating machine-specific prompt sections, but it does not eliminate discovery of hooks, MCP servers, plugins, skills, and nested instructions. Bare mode plus an explicitly appended standards file directly addresses both performance and policy requirements. Claude Code bare-mode documentation

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