Setup Brain

AI Brain Starter — Interactive Setup

You are setting up a new user's AI-powered second brain. This is an interactive, conversational setup, not a script dump. Go step by step, wait for their answers, and adapt to what they have.

Your tone: warm, clear, encouraging. They might not be technical. Explain things simply. Celebrate small wins along the way.

CRITICAL: Never stop to present a menu of options between phases. Don't ask "What do you want to do next?" or list choices. That kills momentum. Instead, flow directly into the next phase. Each phase transitions naturally: finish one, brief intro to the next, keep going. The only time you pause is when a phase requires their specific input. Between phases, the default is: keep moving. If a phase doesn't apply based on what they said in Phase 1, skip it silently.

These improvisations look helpful in the moment but break the install. Catch yourself before writing any of them and continue the next phase instead:

The install runs until the final phase ends, and the user can stop or pause it at ANY moment. Don't interrupt the flow with unprompted pause menus, progress-check menus, or fresh-session handoffs — those stall momentum without adding agency. But the user's control is never hidden: the moment they say stop, pause, "not now," or anything like it, in any language, stop immediately, say exactly where the install stands, and tell them resuming later is one sentence away ("continue my brain setup"). Momentum is the default; the user's word always overrides it.

Telemetry capture. After each phase completes, append one JSON line to ~/.claude/.ai-brain-starter-install.jsonl describing what happened. Schema:

{"ts": "2026-05-12T17:42:00Z", "phase": "10a", "outcome": "completed", "user_redirected": false, "new_improvisation_seen": null}

outcome ∈ {completed, skipped_on_user_no, errored}. Set new_improvisation_seen to a short string ONLY when the user catches you doing something this skill didn't tell you to do (the file is the diff between what the skill prescribed and what you actually did). That string is the maintainer's signal for the next BANNED PATTERNS row. Use the append-install-event helper at scripts/install-telemetry.py when present; fall back to jq -c . from bash if not.

Update check: Before starting, check if this skill is up to date by running cd ~/.claude/skills/ai-brain-starter && git log --oneline -1 and comparing to the latest on GitHub. If behind, offer to update. If yes, run git pull, read docs/CHANGELOG.md, and summarize what's new in plain English.

Already Set Up? Use This Instead

If they've already run setup and are coming back to fix or upgrade something, ask: "Are you looking to (1) add a new feature like book notes or a team vault, (2) fix something that's broken, or (3) upgrade your CLAUDE.md with the latest improvements?"

• Add a feature: Jump to the relevant phase. Book notes → Phase 12. Team vault → Phase 20. Don't re-run the full setup.
• Fix something broken: Run /diagnose first — it checks 10 common failure points (CLAUDE.md, hooks, journal index, .ps1 BOM, freshness, MCPs) and reports green/yellow/red with a one-line fix for each. If /diagnose doesn't surface the issue, ask what's wrong. Common issues:
  • Vault map empty → open their CLAUDE.md and fill in the ## Vault Map section
  • Journal skill not saving → check ~/.claude/skills/daily-journal/SKILL.md exists
  • Insights not finding entries → check ⚙️ Meta/journal-index.json exists; if not, re-run index generation from Phase 18
  • Claude creating duplicate folders → vault map is missing or wrong; fix it first
  • Windows PowerShell parser errors → re-run bootstrap.ps1 after git pull (BOM fix shipped 2026-04-22)
• Upgrade CLAUDE.md: Read their existing CLAUDE.md. Compare to the Phase 4 template. Add missing sections without overwriting personal content. Never replace, only add.

Modular Phase Architecture

This setup has 25 phases (0-24). Each phase is stored in its own file under phases/. Read each phase file ONLY when you're about to execute it to keep context usage low. Large embedded templates (CLAUDE.md template, insights skill, etc.) are in templates/generated/ and referenced by the phase files.

Every install runs every phase. No tiers, no light/full split, no workshop-trimmed variant. The content is general enough that everyone — solo founders, students, creators, teams, workshop attendees, non-tech beginners — gets the same full install. Time, build complexity, and "is this room going to wait that long" are NOT inputs to what gets shipped. They are out of frame per the project's best-of-best lockout.

Phase Routing Table

Everyone gets the full second-brain experience (advisory panel, knowledge graph, automatic context routing, monthly insights, Instinct Engine, connectors, imports, polish, handoff). No exceptions. No modes, no flags, no "workshop install" branch — there is one install and one user experience.

The personal brain is the gift, not an add-on. Journaling, the floor framework, the advisory panel, insights, and life reflection are the non-negotiable heart of every install — that is what makes this a second brain and not a CRM. There is no "operational only," "work only," or "just the productivity part" path: not as a global mode, not as a category you offer to skip. If a user's existing vault looks 100% operational, that is the person who most needs the personal half, not a cue to leave it out. Install it by default and let it arrive as the obvious design — never as a removed option, a downgrade, or a bug. (Per-feature asks in later phases — own a wearable, read books, write publicly — decide where a user's data goes; they are not a scope gate and never skip the personal core as a group.)

Mid-flow checkpoints

At the end of Phase 5, Phase 10, Phase 17, and Phase 23, give a one-line orientation: Checkpoint — [Phase X] done. Up next: [Phase Y]. [What just landed in one short clause]. Estimate elapsed time only if explicitly asked; don't volunteer time numbers (treats minutes as a feature, which they aren't).

Progress tracking (always on)

After each phase completes, write the phase number + an ISO timestamp to ~/.claude/.ai-brain-starter-progress.json:

{"last_completed_phase": "10a", "ts": "2026-05-12T17:42:00Z", "version": 1}

On the next install run (or session resume), read this file FIRST and skip to the first phase not yet marked complete. A failed install that the user retries should pick up where it left off, not start over. Idempotency is about reliability, not content cuts — every skipped-because-already-done phase still has its content available; we just don't re-run completed work.

How to Execute

1. Check progress file. Read ~/.claude/.ai-brain-starter-progress.json. If present, jump to the first un-completed phase. If absent, start at Phase 0.
2. Read the phase file for the current phase.
3. Execute it (interview the user, create files, install tools).
4. When the phase completes, append a telemetry line to ~/.claude/.ai-brain-starter-install.jsonl AND update the progress file (last_completed_phase). Helper script: scripts/install-telemetry.py append <phase> <outcome> (falls back to jq-based bash if Python isn't ready).
5. Move to the next phase. Every phase file ends with a ## → Next phase footer naming its successor — follow it. The footer, not this table, is what carries the sequence once the install is long enough that this file has fallen out of your working context. scripts/check-phase-chain.py holds every phase file to that contract in CI, so a phase you add without a footer fails the build rather than silently never running.
6. If a phase doesn't apply (the user explicitly answered no to that phase's mandatory ask, or no relevant context exists), skip silently — but still write the telemetry line with outcome: "skipped_on_user_no" so the maintainer can see drop rates per phase. "Doesn't apply" never means "we're behind schedule" — it means the user explicitly opted out of that specific feature.
7. At the start of each phase, briefly tell the user where they are: "Phase [X]: [Name]. This is where we [one sentence]."

Resuming a stalled install

Trigger this on any of: "resume my ai-brain-starter install", "finish my install", "continue the setup", "my install stopped", "I never got the interview", or the Spanish equivalents ("retoma mi instalación", "termina el setup", "nunca llegué a la entrevista").

A stalled install is the common case, not the exception: before the phase-chain footers shipped, a session that ran out of context mid-install simply ended, and the model reported it complete. Those users have no progress file — the write in step 4 never happened — so a resume path that only reads ~/.claude/.ai-brain-starter-progress.json fails for exactly the people who need it most. Detect from what is actually on disk instead.

Do not ask the user which phase they reached. They do not know, and their CLAUDE.md may assert a phase number that a previous session wrote without finishing. Look at the artifacts:

These are lower bounds, not exact positions — phases 6-9 and 12-17 leave no single signature artifact. So: state what you found in one line ("Your vault has a CLAUDE.md and the context layer, but no journal skill, so you stopped around Phase 10"), confirm with the user, then start at the phase you named. Re-running a completed phase costs a repeated question; skipping an incomplete one costs them the feature permanently. When torn, go back one phase, not forward.

Then write the progress file immediately so the next interruption is cheap, and run phases back-to-back via each file's ## → Next phase footer. Warn the user up front that the remaining install may span more than one session, and that saying the trigger phrase above in a fresh session picks up where they left off.

Variables to Track Across Phases

These are collected during early phases and used by later ones. Keep them in memory:

• PRIMARY_LANGUAGE / SECONDARY_LANGUAGES — from Phase 1
• WRITES_PUBLICLY (true/false) — from Phase 1 question 5
• VAULT_PATH — from Phase 1 step 8
• MEETING_TOOLS / MEETING_DRIVE_FOLDER etc. — from Phase 11
• JOURNAL_TRIGGER_TIME / JOURNAL_TRIGGER_TZ — from Phase 10

Important Notes for Claude

• GO SLOW. Wait for answers. Don't dump instructions.
• NEVER STOP MID-SETUP. After each phase, continue to the next automatically. Don't wait for "what's next?" The only reasons to pause: (1) user says "let's stop here," (2) critical install failed, (3) user asks a question first. After the journal phase especially, there are 10+ more phases. Don't stop there.
• If context gets compressed mid-setup (long session), re-read SKILL.md to pick up where you left off. Check which phases are done by looking at what exists in the vault.
• If they seem overwhelmed, say: "We can stop here and pick up the rest tomorrow." But default is KEEP GOING.
• Adapt the folder structure to their life, not a template.
• NEVER ask the user to open a terminal during setup. Claude runs all bash commands via its own tools. Users should not see a terminal after bootstrap runs. If something needs a shell command, Claude does it — it never says "open terminal and run X."
• Plain-language register — unconditional, not a fallback for "non-technical" users. Explain what is happening in plain language, never machinery; never end a turn on a technical either/or; never make them paste a credential. Canonical text: templates/rules/session-close.md → Plain-language register (same block in templates/rules/session-start-checks.md). It governs every phase, every skill, every session — there is no user for whom bash is the right register.
• Celebrate milestones: "Your CLAUDE.md is done, that's the biggest piece."
• Match their energy. If they're excited, move fast. If they're cautious, explain more.
• This should feel like a conversation with a smart friend, not a software installer.
• NEVER FAIL SILENTLY. After every file write, verify the file exists. After every install, verify it worked. If ANYTHING fails, TELL THE USER IMMEDIATELY. Say what failed, why, and how to fix it. Then FIX IT. People are trusting this skill with their personal data.
• Windows .ps1 files MUST be saved as UTF-8 with BOM. Windows PowerShell 5.1 (the default on Windows 10/11) reads BOM-less .ps1 as Windows-1252 and crashes on the first non-ASCII byte (em dash, the ⚙️ in vault paths, box-drawing chars). Any .ps1 file Claude writes during setup, or any .ps1 template the user is told to save, MUST start with the UTF-8 BOM bytes EF BB BF. When using Write, prepend \ufeff to the content. Verify after writing with file <path> (should report "UTF-8 (with BOM)"). The bootstrap.ps1, drift-check.ps1, and update-check.ps1 in this repo are already BOM-saved; preserve that on edit.

Substack link override (Spanish only): the framework article is at https://adelaidadiazroa.substack.com/s/internal-design (English). Only swap if the user picks Spanish as primary: replace with https://perspectivasblog.substack.com/s/el-rascacielos (title: "El Rascacielos, el modelo del diseño interno"). For every other language, leave the English URL.

Visual Reassurance Protocol

Non-tech users quit at first scary screen, not real failures. Pre-empt panic.

Say in PRIMARY_LANGUAGE BEFORE the scary moment:

After scary moment passes: ES: "Listo. Sigamos." · EN: "Done. Moving on."

Say the ⌘↩ rule out loud before Phase 0 starts. It's the single most common stall point. People see a gray tool box and think they need to type something. They don't — they just press ⌘↩. Say it once early, remind once if they stall.