Exbrain — Your AI's External Brain

An AI knowledge system that automatically remembers, organizes, and reflects.
Claude Code × Obsidian × SOUL/MEMORY/DREAMS

🇯🇵 日本語版はこちら · Inspired by Karpathy's LLM Wiki

What is Exbrain?

Exbrain turns Claude Code's hidden internal state — Memory files, CLAUDE.md configs, Skills — into a human-readable Obsidian vault. It adds a Dreaming layer that automatically reflects on your day, detects patterns, and builds a growth trajectory over time.

Your laptop can be closed. Your phone shows everything. You just open Obsidian and read.

How It Works — For Beginners

If you're new to Claude Code or Obsidian, here's the big picture:

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    YOU (Human)                                │
│                                                              │
│   Work with Claude Code    Bookmark on X    Send URL in Slack│
│         ↓                      ↓                  ↓          │
└─────────┬──────────────────────┬──────────────────┬──────────┘
          │                      │                  │
          ▼                      ▼                  ▼
┌─────────────────┐  ┌───────────────────┐  ┌──────────────────┐
│  Claude Code    │  │  Cron Job (Auto)  │  │  Always-On Agent │
│  (Local CLI)    │  │  Every 4 hours    │  │  (e.g. OpenClaw) │
│                 │  │                   │  │                  │
│ • /clip skill   │  │ • X bookmark sync │  │ • Slack listener │
│ • Hooks (auto)  │  │ • xurl API        │  │ • URL detection  │
│ • Session logs  │  │                   │  │ • firecrawl      │
└────────┬────────┘  └────────┬──────────┘  └────────┬─────────┘
         │                    │                      │
         └────────────────────┼──────────────────────┘
                              │
                              ▼
                 ┌──────────────────────┐
                 │   ~/vault/ (Git)     │
                 │                      │
                 │  SOUL.md   MEMORY.md │
                 │  DREAMS.md           │
                 │  daily/  clips/      │
                 │  clients/ insights/  │
                 └──────────┬───────────┘
                            │
                   ┌────────┼────────┐
                   │        │        │
                   ▼        ▼        ▼
                GitHub   iCloud   Obsidian
                (backup) (sync)   (Mac+iPhone)

Components Explained

Component	What it is	Role in Exbrain
Claude Code	Anthropic's AI coding CLI (docs)	Your main AI assistant. Runs skills like /clip, writes to vault, manages hooks
Obsidian	Free markdown note app (obsidian.md)	Where you read everything. Vault = folder of .md files. Works on Mac, iPhone, Android
Always-On Agent	A background AI (e.g. OpenClaw)	Monitors Slack/Discord 24/7. Runs cron jobs even when Claude Code is closed
Cloud Scheduled Tasks	Claude Code's built-in scheduler (docs)	Runs morning/evening Dreaming without your PC. Updates MEMORY.md and DREAMS.md
xurl	X API CLI tool	Fetches tweets and bookmarks from X (Twitter)
Firecrawl	Web scraping CLI	Converts any URL into clean markdown
iCloud	Apple's cloud sync	Syncs vault between Mac and iPhone automatically
GitHub	Code hosting	Backup + version history for your vault

Data Flow: What Happens When You Clip

You find an interesting article
         │
         ▼
  ┌─ Pick your method ──────────────────────────────────┐
  │                                                      │
  │  A) /clip URL          B) Slack DM         C) Just  │
  │     in Claude Code        send URL         bookmark │
  │         │                    │              on X     │
  │         ▼                    ▼                │      │
  │    Claude Code          Agent detects    (wait 4h)   │
  │    runs instantly       URL in real-time      │      │
  └──────┬───────────────────┬───────────────────┬──────┘
         │                   │                   │
         └───────────────────┼───────────────────┘
                             │
                             ▼
                   ┌─────────────────┐
                   │  AI Processing  │
                   │                 │
                   │ 1. Fetch content│
                   │ 2. Summarize    │
                   │ 3. Tag (auto)   │
                   │ 4. Save .md     │
                   └────────┬────────┘
                            │
                            ▼
               vault/clips/x/2026-04-08_slug.md
                            │
                  ┌─────────┼─────────┐
                  │         │         │
                  ▼         ▼         ▼
            _index.md   daily note   git push
            updated     updated      to GitHub
                                        │
                                        ▼
                                   iCloud sync
                                        │
                                        ▼
                                 📱 Read on iPhone

System Relationship Map

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                         │
│  ┌──────────────┐         ┌──────────────┐              │
│  │ Claude Code  │────────▶│  ~/vault/    │◀──────┐      │
│  │ (CLI agent)  │ writes  │ (Obsidian)   │       │      │
│  │              │         │              │  writes│      │
│  │ Skills:      │         │ SOUL.md      │       │      │
│  │  /clip       │         │ MEMORY.md    │  ┌────┴────┐ │
│  │  /auto-mins  │         │ DREAMS.md    │  │ Cloud   │ │
│  │  30+ more    │         │ daily/       │  │Schedule │ │
│  └──────────────┘         │ clips/       │  │ Tasks   │ │
│                           │ clients/     │  │         │ │
│  ┌──────────────┐         │ meetings/    │  │ Morning │ │
│  │ Always-On    │────────▶│ insights/    │  │ Evening │ │
│  │ Agent        │ writes  │              │  └─────────┘ │
│  │ (OpenClaw)   │         └──────┬───────┘              │
│  │              │                │                      │
│  │ Cron jobs:   │          git push/pull                │
│  │  X bookmarks │                │                      │
│  │  Slack DM    │         ┌──────▼───────┐              │
│  │  Reports     │         │   GitHub     │              │
│  └──────────────┘         │  (private)   │              │
│                           └──────────────┘              │
│                                                         │
│          ─── All connected via ~/vault/ ───             │
│                                                         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

The SOUL / MEMORY / DREAMS Trinity

The core of Exbrain is three files at the root of your vault:

~/vault/
├── SOUL.md      ← WHO you are (identity, values, boundaries)
├── MEMORY.md    ← WHAT you've experienced (decisions, patterns, lessons)
└── DREAMS.md    ← WHERE you're going (insights, growth, open questions)

SOUL.md — Identity

Defines who you are and how the AI should behave. Merged from Claude Code's CLAUDE.md and any external agent personality configs.

## Identity
- Your name, role, company

## Values
- "Ship fast, iterate later"
- "API-first, no manual work"

## Boundaries (non-negotiable)
- "Never send emails — drafts only"
- "Never post to Slack without confirmation"

## Tech Ecosystem
- APIs, MCP servers, CLI tools

MEMORY.md — Experience

A digest of everything the AI has learned. Auto-synced from Claude Code's Memory (.claude/projects/*/memory/) + enriched by Cloud Scheduled Tasks.

## Recent
- [2026-04-07] Built Obsidian vault with SOUL/MEMORY/DREAMS
- [2026-04-06] Shipped new feature for Project Alpha

## Decisions
- Hybrid design: static mirror + Karpathy pattern + Dreaming

## Patterns
- Fridays are meeting-heavy (3 weeks in a row)
- Email replies concentrate in the afternoon

## CC Memory Summary (35 files)
- feedback/21: "Never send emails", "Always git commit after GAS edits"
- reference/7: API locations, tool configs
- project/4: Active project statuses
- user/1: User profile and preferences

DREAMS.md — Reflection

Updated automatically by Dreaming (morning + evening + weekly). Tracks patterns that emerge over time.

## Current Insights
- Meeting density peaks on Mondays (10+ meetings, 3 consecutive weeks)

## Emerging Patterns
| Pattern | Count | Trend |
|---------|-------|-------|
| Tool → Skill → Automation cycle | 10+ | Consistent |
| Email/Slack send caution | 5+ | Critical boundary |

## Growth Trajectory
- Q1: Built 26 skills, automated 32 cron jobs

## Open Questions
- Should CC Memory duplicates be consolidated?

Clips — Knowledge Clipping

Clips automatically captures tweets and articles into your vault. Like Karpathy's compounding knowledge pattern, everything you read accumulates and becomes searchable in Obsidian.

Three Ways to Clip

Method	Trigger	Best for
/clip skill	/clip <URL> in Claude Code	Working at your desk, high-quality summaries
Slack DM	Post URL in Slack DM to your agent	On the go (phone), instant capture
X Bookmark Sync	Automatic every 4 hours	Passive — just bookmark on X, it syncs

1. /clip — Manual Clip in Claude Code

/clip https://x.com/karpathy/status/1234567890
/clip https://example.com/great-article
/clip https://url1.com https://url2.com          # multiple URLs

Detects X tweet vs article automatically. Fetches content, generates summary + tags in Japanese, saves to clips/, updates daily note, and pushes to git.

2. Slack DM — Clip from Your Phone

Just send a URL to your agent's Slack DM:

https://example.com/interesting-article

The agent detects the URL, scrapes the content, generates a summary, saves to clips/, and replies in a thread:

📎 Clipped!
📄 How LLMs Will Change Everything
🏷️ #ai #llm #future
📁 vault/clips/articles/2026-04-08_llm-change-everything.md

Setup: Requires an always-on agent (like OpenClaw) with Slack Socket Mode. Add the URL detection behavior to your agent's auto-actions. See Slack Clip Setup below.

3. X Bookmark Auto-Sync

Bookmark tweets on X as you normally would. A cron job syncs them to your vault automatically.

Default schedule: Every 4 hours (8:00, 12:00, 16:00, 20:00)

Requirements: xurl CLI with OAuth2 authentication.

# Test manually
xurl bookmarks -n 5 --auth oauth2

Clip File Format

---
date: 2026-04-08
type: clip
source: x | article
url: https://...
author: "@username"
tags: [ai, claude-code, agent]
via: slack | cli | cron          # how it was clipped
---

## Summary
(3-5 line summary in your language)

## Key Points
- Point 1
- Point 2

## Notes
> Important quotes

## Related
[[insights/...]] | [[clips/...]]

Daily Note Integration

Each clip is automatically linked in the day's daily note:

## Clips
- [[clips/x/2026-04-08_sam-altman-social-contract]] — Sam Altman's social contract
- [[clips/articles/2026-04-08_karpathy-llm-wiki]] — Karpathy LLM Wiki pattern

Dataview Queries

Browse clips by tag in Obsidian:

TABLE rows.date, rows.source, rows.author
FROM "clips"
WHERE type = "clip"
FLATTEN tags as tag
GROUP BY tag
SORT rows.date DESC

Slack Clip Setup

To enable Slack DM → clip, add this auto-action to your agent:

1. Create skill files in your agent's workspace:

workspace/skills/slack-clip/
├── SKILL.md          ← Skill overview
├── BEHAVIOR.md       ← Detection rules + processing flow
└── processed-clips.json  ← Deduplication tracking

2. Add auto-action to your agent's config (e.g., AGENTS.md):

### URL Post → Vault Clip
Automatically saves to vault/clips/ when a DM contains a URL.

Detection:
- Message text contains https:// (forwarded messages excluded)
- Slack internal URLs and direct image links excluded

Processing:
1. Detect URL type (X tweet vs article)
2. X tweet → xurl read / article → firecrawl scrape
3. Generate summary + tags → save to vault/clips/
4. git push + thread reply confirmation

3. Ensure tools are available to the agent:
   • xurl (X API CLI) with OAuth2 auth
   • firecrawl (web scraping CLI)
   • Git access to your vault repo

X Bookmark Cron Setup

Add a cron job to your agent scheduler:

{
  "name": "clip-x-bookmarks",
  "schedule": "0 8-23/4 * * *",
  "message": "Fetch X bookmarks with `xurl bookmarks -n 20 --auth oauth2`, check for duplicates in vault/clips/x/, summarize new ones, save to vault/clips/x/, update _index.md, git push."
}

Architecture

┌─ Layer 1: Cloud Scheduled Tasks (no PC needed) ────────────┐
│                                                              │
│  07:00  vault-daily-morning                                  │
│  ├── Read SOUL.md (understand user context)                  │
│  ├── Read MEMORY.md (recent decisions & patterns)            │
│  ├── Google Calendar → today's schedule                      │
│  ├── Slack → overnight highlights                            │
│  ├── Gmail → important unread emails                         │
│  ├── Morning Dreaming (yesterday's review → today's focus)   │
│  ├── Update MEMORY.md Recent section                         │
│  └── git push                                                │
│                                                              │
│  18:30  vault-daily-evening                                  │
│  ├── Read SOUL.md + MEMORY.md + DREAMS.md                    │
│  ├── Evening Dreaming (today + 7-day pattern detection)      │
│  ├── Update MEMORY.md + DREAMS.md                            │
│  ├── Sunday: weekly Dreaming + Lint + Slack notification      │
│  └── git push                                                │
│                                                              │
└──────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┘
                       │ push
                       ▼
┌─ GitHub (private repo) ──────────────────────────────────────┐
│  All vault files                                              │
└──────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┘
                       │ pull (hourly via launchd)
                       ▼
┌─ Layer 2: Local Automation ──────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                               │
│  Claude Code Hooks (async: true)                              │
│  ├── PostToolUse → log file changes                           │
│  └── Stop → append session end to daily note + MEMORY.md      │
│                                                               │
│  External Agent Cron (when PC is on)                          │
│  ├── Additional data: Salesforce, Stripe, HERP, YouTube       │
│  └── Skipped when PC is off (Layer 1 is self-sufficient)      │
│                                                               │
└──────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┘
                       │ iCloud sync
                       ▼
              Obsidian (Mac + iPhone)

Vault Structure

~/vault/
├── SOUL.md                ← Identity, values, boundaries
├── MEMORY.md              ← Experience digest (CC Memory mirror)
├── DREAMS.md              ← Dreaming accumulation (auto-updated)
├── CLAUDE.md              ← Schema (LLM rules for this vault)
│
├── daily/                 ← Daily notes (auto-generated morning & evening)
│   └── 2026-04-07.md         Schedule / Gmail / Slack / AI Analysis /
│                              Morning Reflection / Evening Reflection /
│                              Claude Code Session / Thoughts
│
├── system/                ← Claude Code system mirror (SYNCED)
│   ├── claude-md-tree.md     All CLAUDE.md files as a tree
│   ├── global-rules.md       Rules & boundaries summary
│   ├── api-inventory.md      API list (no keys)
│   ├── tech-stack.md         Technology stack
│   └── cron-jobs.md          Running cron jobs
│
├── skills/                ← All skills with details (SYNCED)
├── memory/                ← CC Memory individual file mirror (SYNCED)
│   ├── feedback/             Behavioral guidelines
│   ├── reference/            External system pointers
│   ├── project/              Project statuses
│   └── user/                 User profile
│
├── clips/                 ← Clipped tweets & articles (auto + manual)
│   ├── x/                    X bookmarks (auto-synced every 4 hours)
│   ├── articles/             Web articles (via /clip or Slack)
│   ├── _index.md             Clip index (auto-updated)
│   └── tags.md               Tag-based classification (Dataview)
│
├── clients/               ← Client knowledge (Karpathy pattern)
├── meetings/              ← Meeting summaries (auto from /auto-mins)
├── decisions/             ← Decision log
├── insights/              ← Learnings + weekly Dreaming
├── templates/             ← daily-note, meeting, decision
└── scripts/               ← Hook scripts + sync scripts

Hybrid Design: Three Personalities

vault/
├── system/, skills/, memory/
│   → Static mirror (dashboard)
│   → Auto-synced from Claude Code, read-only
│   → <!-- SYNCED: DO NOT EDIT --> header
│
├── daily/
│   → Auto log + handwritten diary
│   → Calendar + Slack + Gmail + AI Analysis + Dreaming
│   → Runs even with PC closed (Cloud Scheduled Tasks)
│
└── meetings/, clients/, insights/
    → Karpathy pattern (compounding knowledge)
    → Each meeting processed → client page auto-enriched
    → No need to re-read 12 meeting transcripts

Setup

Prerequisites

• Claude Code (Pro or Max)
• Obsidian (free)
• GitHub account
• (Optional) Slack / Google Calendar / Gmail Connectors

Step 1: Create Vault

mkdir -p ~/vault/{daily,system,skills,memory/{feedback,reference,project,user},clients,meetings,decisions,insights,templates,scripts}

# iCloud sync (for iPhone)
mv ~/vault ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/exbrain
ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/exbrain ~/vault

Step 2: Copy Templates

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/exbrain.git /tmp/exbrain
cp -r /tmp/exbrain/vault-template/* ~/vault/

Step 3: Configure Hooks

Add to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PostToolUse": [{
      "matcher": "Write|Edit",
      "hooks": [{
        "type": "command",
        "command": "bash ~/vault/scripts/on-file-change.sh",
        "async": true
      }]
    }],
    "Stop": [{
      "hooks": [{
        "type": "command",
        "command": "bash ~/vault/scripts/on-session-end.sh",
        "async": true
      }]
    }]
  }
}

Step 4: Initial Sync

In Claude Code:

Please read all my skills from ~/.claude/skills/, all memory files from
~/.claude/projects/*/memory/, and sync them to ~/vault/. Create SOUL.md
with my identity and MEMORY.md with a digest of all memories.

Step 5: GitHub Backup

cd ~/vault
git init && git add -A && git commit -m "Initial vault"
gh repo create my-vault --private --source=. --push

Step 6: Cloud Scheduled Tasks (PC-free automation)

At claude.ai/code/scheduled:

• vault-daily-morning (07:00): Read SOUL.md → Calendar + Slack + Gmail → daily note + Morning Dreaming
• vault-daily-evening (18:30): Read SOUL.md + MEMORY.md + DREAMS.md → Evening Dreaming + pattern detection

Daily Note Example

---
date: 2026-04-07
weekday: Monday
type: daily
score: 74
---

## Schedule
| Time | Event | Note |
|------|-------|------|
| 09:00 | Management meeting | |
| 10:00 | Sales standup | |
| 14:00 | Company standup | |

## Gmail
| From | Subject | Action |
|------|---------|--------|
| [Contact] | Project meeting request | Reply needed |

## Slack Highlights
- **#general**: Organization restructuring discussion
- **#sales**: New lead from inbound campaign
- **#daily-report**: Project Beta milestone reached

## Morning Reflection
- Yesterday's decision: Revised product roadmap
- Today's focus: Follow up on pending proposals

## Evening Reflection
- Highlight: Project Beta milestone reached
- Pattern: Mondays consistently have 10+ meetings (3 weeks)
- Unresolved: Partner meeting follow-up

## Thoughts
<!-- Write your own reflection here -->

Scripts Included

Script	Purpose
on-session-end.sh	Stop hook: appends session summary to daily note + MEMORY.md
on-file-change.sh	PostToolUse hook: logs CLAUDE.md/memory/skill changes
weekly-sync.sh	Weekly lint: broken links, orphan pages, stale content
git-pull-sync.sh	Hourly git pull with stash handling
sync-agent-to-vault.sh	Enriches daily notes from external agent JSON data
sync-x-bookmarks.sh	Auto-fetches X bookmarks + clips (every 4 hours)

All scripts are macOS-compatible (no GNU extensions), reviewed for security (no shell injection, PID-based locking instead of flock).

References

• Karpathy's LLM Wiki — The original pattern
• Claude Code Hooks — async hook documentation
• Cloud Scheduled Tasks — PC-free automation
• QMD — Markdown semantic search (for 100+ pages)

License

MIT