Second Brain

Your AI-powered Chief of Staff — captures, organizes, and farms context while you work

A git-tracked Obsidian vault powered by Claude Code. Natural language in, organized knowledge out. Hooks auto-commit every action, farmers pull context from Slack and meetings on a schedule, and delegation forks work to specialized AI employees across repos. Git is the database — every change is a timestamped, filterable commit.

What It Does

Captures naturally — Say "meeting with Sarah Friday about Q2 planning" and it creates linked person notes, tasks, and project files
Plans your day — Aggregates due tasks, overdue items, and active projects into a daily plan
Farms context automatically — Subagents read Slack, meeting transcripts, and other sources on a schedule, classifying what matters into your vault
Delegates work — Forks terminal sessions to AI employees that work autonomously across repos
Tracks everything — Every action auto-commits with cos: prefix for easy filtering

Prerequisites

Requirement	Details
Claude Pro/Max	claude.ai — subscription for Claude Code access
Claude Code	Anthropic's agentic CLI (install below)
Obsidian	Free markdown editor — obsidian.md/download
Git	Pre-installed on macOS

Installation

1. Install Claude Code

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

On first run, Claude Code prompts you to authenticate with your Anthropic account.

Prefer a GUI? Claude Code is also available as a VS Code extension, desktop app, and web app.

2. Create Your Vault

Click "Use this template" → "Create a new repository" at the top of this repo
Set visibility to Private — your vault will contain personal data
Clone your new repo locally:

git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/second-brain.git
cd second-brain

Open Obsidian → "Open folder as vault" → select the second-brain folder

3. Start

claude

Run the setup command:

/start-second-brain

This validates your repo is private, creates the vault folder structure, pushes to verify everything is connected, and walks you through context onboarding (role, writing style, business profile). Once complete, try:

/new remember to review quarterly report by Friday
/today
/history

Commands

Command	Purpose
`/new <text>`	Quick capture — classify and file natural language input
`/today`	Generate daily plan from due tasks and active projects
`/daily-review`	End of day — compare planned vs actual, update statuses
`/history`	Recent git activity (last 7 days)
`/farm <name>`	Trigger a context farmer (e.g., `/farm slack`)
`/create-farmer`	Build a new farmer or schedule an existing one
`/delegate <task>`	Fork terminal for autonomous work

When you use /new, the system decomposes your input into entities (tasks, projects, people, ideas), extracts dates and tags, links them via [[wiki-style]] references, and writes files to the appropriate folders. If classification confidence is below 0.5, it asks for clarification.

Context Farming

Context farmers are Claude Code subagents that read external sources via MCP and write relevant context into the vault automatically. Each farmer is defined in .claude/agents/<name>-farmer.md — the subagent file is both the config and the executor.

How It Works

Reads context/watchlists.md for what to monitor
Checks state file for last run time — only processes the last 24 hours
Reads external source via MCP, classifies entities (task, project, person, idea)
Deduplicates against existing vault files
Pulls latest changes, writes files with source: farmer/<name> in frontmatter
SubagentStop hook auto-pushes commits when done

Built-In Farmers

Farmer	Source	What It Captures
`slack`	Slack channels	Action items, decisions, blockers, people mentions
`fireflies`	Meeting transcripts	Action items, decisions, status updates, new contacts

Watchlists

Farmers are configured through context/watchlists.md — which channels to monitor, keyword signals (deadline, blocker, decision), people to track, meeting title patterns, and active project slugs for cross-referencing.

Scheduling

Mode	How
Cloud scheduled	`/schedule` or claude.ai/code/scheduled — runs 24/7
Desktop scheduled	Desktop app > Schedule page — machine must be on
Loop	`/loop 30m /farm slack` — session-scoped polling
Manual	`/farm slack` — on-demand

Creating New Farmers

Run /create-farmer to build a farmer for any connected MCP (Gmail, Google Calendar, Firecrawl, etc.). It verifies the MCP connection, gathers your monitoring preferences, generates the subagent file, updates permissions and watchlists, and offers to schedule it.

Delegation

Credit: Based on IndieDev Dan's fork-repository-skill. Check out his YouTube channel for more Claude Code content.

The /delegate command forks a new terminal window for autonomous work:

/delegate write the quarterly report based on project notes

A separate Claude instance spawns, works the task, updates the task file with output locations, and plays a notification sound when done.

Cross-Repo Delegation

AI employees are separate Claude Code repos with specialized skills. Configure them in .claude/reference/employees.json:

{
  "head-of-content": "~/Documents/GitHub/head-of-content"
}

Then delegate: /delegate head-of-content: research YouTube content for AI productivity niche

Head of Content — Researches winning content across social platforms (video)
SEO Specialist — SEO research and optimization (video)

Under the Hood

Hooks

Four hooks in .claude/settings.json automate the vault lifecycle:

Hook	Trigger	Purpose
Auto-Commit	`PostToolUse` (Write/Edit)	Commits vault changes with `cos:` prefix, pulls then pushes
Session Sync	`SessionStart`	Pulls remote changes, recovers detached HEAD
Subagent Push	`SubagentStop` (`.*-farmer`)	Pushes commits after a farmer finishes
Stop Sound	`Stop` (if `CLAUDE_DELEGATED=1`)	Notification when delegated task completes

Git as Audit Trail

Every action generates a commit: cos: <action> - <description>

git log --since="8am" --grep="cos:" --oneline   # Today's activity
git log --grep="farmer/"                          # Farmer-only activity
git diff HEAD~1                                   # What changed last
git log -p tasks/my-task.md                       # File history

File Formats

All files use YAML frontmatter. Four entity types:

Type	Key Fields	Folder
Task	`type: task`, `due: YYYY-MM-DD`, `status: pending\|in-progress\|complete\|cancelled`	`tasks/`
Project	`type: project`, `status: active\|paused\|complete\|archived`	`projects/`
Person	`type: person`, `last-contact: YYYY-MM-DD`	`people/`
Idea	`type: idea`	`ideas/`

Farmer-created files add source: farmer/<name> and farmed: <timestamp> to frontmatter.

Full templates: .claude/reference/file-formats.md

Directory Structure

second-brain/
├── tasks/                  # Items with due dates
├── projects/               # Ongoing work
├── people/                 # Relationship notes
├── ideas/                  # Captured thoughts
├── context/                # LLM context, watchlists, farmer state
├── daily/                  # Daily plans (YYYY-MM-DD.md)
├── weekly/                 # Weekly summaries
├── outputs/                # Deliverables
└── .claude/
    ├── agents/             # Context farmer subagents
    ├── hooks/              # auto-commit, session-sync, subagent-push, stop-sound
    ├── skills/             # Slash command definitions
    └── reference/          # File format templates, employee config

Troubleshooting

Auto-commit not working — Check that .claude/settings.json allows Bash(git add:*) and Bash(git commit:*). Verify hook is executable: chmod +x .claude/hooks/auto-commit.sh. Confirm the file is in a tracked directory.

Tasks not appearing in /today — Ensure due: YYYY-MM-DD in frontmatter with exact ISO format. File must be in tasks/.

Classification asking too many questions — Be more specific: "task: call John by Friday" instead of "John Friday".

Design Philosophy

Git is the database — No separate storage, just markdown and commits
Natural language first — Say what you mean, let classification handle the rest
Auto-commit everything — Hooks ensure nothing is lost
Farm, don't fetch — Context comes to you on a schedule
Cross-repo awareness — Delegation maintains context across projects

License

MIT License — Feel free to modify and distribute.

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