My Claude setup
Not as a toy. As a small team: skills for expertise, agents for independent digging, a vault for memory, and guardrails that keep it honest.
Playbooks I never have to name. The right one loads from what I say.
Separate Claudes, used only when the blank slate or the volume is the point.
Truth, money, privacy and irreversible actions, binding on every session.
A gap stays a gap until I have a real figure.
The blueprint
This is the whole system on one page. I ask in plain words, a router picks the playbook, skills or agents do the work, the vault remembers, and the guardrails sit above everything.
What it does for me
Before helping, it reads the notes for that topic, so I never re-explain my business. When I mention something durable, it files it and updates old facts in place.
Ask about margins and a finance playbook loads. Ask about a launch and a go-to-market one does. It mentions which one it used so I learn the system.
Before anything expensive, public or irreversible, a separate agent with no memory of my enthusiasm argues the case against it.
If a number is missing it says so. Nothing is invented, because the same notes feed my pitches and pricing.
Deleting, publishing, sending or spending always needs my go-ahead. The default output is a draft I press send on.
Every money answer states its assumptions and shows the pessimistic case, not only the hopeful one.
How a question travels
I never have to know a tool's name.Pricing, ads, legal, hiring, anything
Reads what I am really asking about.Silent, no menu
Into the same chat, so it already knows everything I said.75 playbooks
A one-line mention of which skill was used.So I learn the system
Anything durable gets filed for next time.Read before, write after
Skills and agents
A skill loads a playbook into this conversation, where Claude already knows everything I have said. I never type a skill name. It is picked from the topic.
They cover:
An agent is a separate Claude with no memory of the chat. It is worth it only when the blank slate is a feature, or when the job is heavy independent digging.
Cheap and reversible: no committee. Expensive, public or irreversible: always a red-team first.
The eight agents
The rules
All my notes live in one organised vault, split by area of my work. The rules above it overrule every skill and every agent.
Before helping, it reads the matching folder of my notes. When I mention something durable, it files it, updating old facts in place.
A gap is marked as a gap, never filled with a plausible-sounding number. The vault feeds pitches and pricing, so a made-up figure is a real problem.
Deleting, publishing, sending or spending needs my go-ahead first, and the default is a draft I press send on.
Before an agent starts, I paste the actual facts into its prompt, not filenames. An unbriefed agent returns textbook advice.
Why it matters
From the AI card recommender to the booking agent to the store itself, the same habit runs through everything: talk to real people, build a rough version fast, and keep a human in the loop until it earns trust.