Full Guide - Build Your Own AI Second Brain with Claude Code — Transcript
Full transcript
- 0:00I've been building my second brain with
- 0:01Claude code for the last 3 months and
- 0:04it's gotten to the point where it saves
- 0:05me at least a dozen hours of work and I
- 0:08promise you I'm not exaggerating for the
- 0:11sake of this video. So right now, I want
- 0:13to show you all of the components of my
- 0:16second brain, talk about the skills and
- 0:17the use cases, the things that I'm
- 0:19automating. I've been running a very
- 0:22similar business for the last year and a
- 0:24half and so I know how long it takes for
- 0:26me to do a lot of these things that I've
- 0:28started to automate with the help of my
- 0:30second brain and there is a stark
- 0:32contrast for a lot of parts of the
- 0:34business with how long it took back then
- 0:37and how long it takes now. So I don't
- 0:39use my second brain to work less, but it
- 0:43takes things off my plate so I can move
- 0:44my business forward faster, focusing
- 0:47more on the high-leverage tasks. That's
- 0:49the main goal of building a second brain
- 0:51is to release some of your capacity so
- 0:54you can dedicate it to things that
- 0:56matter more. So I'm here in my Slack,
- 0:58which is one of the places where to my
- 1:00second brain just like I would a friend
- 1:02or co-worker. So a lot of examples here
- 1:04are things I do with my second brain. I
- 1:06have it help me ideate for my content,
- 1:09creating YouTube scripts based on my
- 1:11tone of voice and my content calendar,
- 1:13managing my inbox, helping me research
- 1:16and keep up with all the craziness in
- 1:17the AI industry right now, but also
- 1:19specific to my interests. It even helps
- 1:22me with image generation and diagram
- 1:23generation, like creating thumbnails,
- 1:25managing my habits to keep me on track
- 1:28every single day with the things I want
- 1:29to accomplish. I use my second brain to
- 1:31help me ideate, research and keep my
- 1:34business and my entire life very
- 1:36organized. And my second brain, which I
- 1:39built on top of Claude code and
- 1:40Obsidian, has been the biggest deal for
- 1:43my business since I started using Claude
- 1:46code itself. And the best part about
- 1:48this entire architecture, which I'll
- 1:49cover with you, is that everything
- 1:51compounds on itself. As you use your
- 1:53second brain more and more, it becomes
- 1:55more in tune with you, anticipating your
- 1:58needs. It builds up examples of how you
- 2:00communicate and work that it references
- 2:02later. The entire application evolves
- 2:04over time and you build this entire
- 2:06knowledge base. That's why I integrate
- 2:07with Obsidian because it's where I store
- 2:09all of my knowledge and have my agent
- 2:11evolve it over time. Every single
- 2:13document that you see here in my
- 2:15Obsidian graph is a part of my second
- 2:17brain. It builds up an index over time
- 2:19of all of my emails, all of my
- 2:21announcements and YouTube scripts. It
- 2:24literally is a brain that is expanding
- 2:27over time as I use it. All right, so
- 2:29here's what we're going to go through
- 2:30today. First, I'm going to address the
- 2:32elephant in the room. Why build your own
- 2:34AI second brain in the first place when
- 2:36we have things like Openclaw out there?
- 2:38Then we'll get into the architecture.
- 2:39I'll show you exactly what goes into
- 2:41each one of the components here, how we
- 2:43build in skills and use cases for our
- 2:45second brain, how we make it evolve
- 2:47itself over time. And then once you
- 2:49understand the core architecture of the
- 2:51second brain, then we're going to get
- 2:53into something special that I have for
- 2:55you here. This is a GitHub repo that
- 2:56I'll link to in the description. We're
- 2:58going to go through this Claude code
- 3:00skill that will walk you through
- 3:01creating your PRD for your second brain.
- 3:04So I'm not giving away all the code for
- 3:05my second brain, but the point is for
- 3:07you to build your own in the first place
- 3:08and this is how you start. And so at the
- 3:11end of the video, I'll go through this
- 3:13live with you, creating that document
- 3:15that outlines the full scope of work to
- 3:17create your second brain in phases to
- 3:19break it down nice and simple for you.
- 3:21All right, so I'm going to dive right
- 3:23into answering the big question here.
- 3:24Why do we care about building our own
- 3:26second brain when we can just run
- 3:27Openclaw? And so to start, I need to
- 3:30explain to you the lethal trifecta. And
- 3:33this is actually really important to
- 3:34understand just for agents in general.
- 3:36So the idea behind the lethal trifecta
- 3:38is we have a huge uptick in concern for
- 3:42our AI agent if all three of the
- 3:44criteria are met because this means that
- 3:46our agent is going to be very
- 3:47susceptible to security risks like
- 3:50prompt injection. You've probably heard
- 3:52about that a lot if you've set up
- 3:54Openclaw and done research on it
- 3:55yourself. And so we have private data
- 3:58access, untrusted content and an
- 4:00exfiltration vector. Let me explain each
- 4:02of the three of these really quick.
- 4:03They're super important. So first of
- 4:05all, we have private data access. If
- 4:07your agent has access to something like
- 4:09an email or calendar, that is step
- 4:11number one for the trifecta and for our
- 4:14second brains, this always applies.
- 4:16Otherwise, it wouldn't really be that
- 4:17helpful to us. And then the second
- 4:20pillar here is untrusted content. If
- 4:22there's any kind of input that can come
- 4:24into our AI agent that isn't from us,
- 4:27things like incoming emails or even web
- 4:29page content, all of those could
- 4:31theoretically contain malicious
- 4:33instructions for a prompt injection
- 4:35attack. And then last but not least, we
- 4:38have the exfiltration vector. It doesn't
- 4:40really matter if your agent can access
- 4:42private info and receive incoming
- 4:44information if there's no way to send
- 4:47your sensitive data out to the malicious
- 4:49attacker, your agent is going to be a
- 4:51lot harder to compromise.
- 4:54However, for our second brains, yeah,
- 4:56it's always going to have the ability to
- 4:57send a message or post to an API
- 4:59endpoint. We're giving so much power to
- 5:02our tools, especially something like
- 5:03Openclaw like I'll talk about in a
- 5:05second here.
- 5:06And so the argument with the lethal
- 5:07trifecta is really all three of these
- 5:10need to be in place. Like if there's a
- 5:11way to send sensitive information to a
- 5:15malicious user
- 5:17and then access our private information.
- 5:19But there isn't really a way to receive
- 5:21a prompt injection attack. Like we can't
- 5:23receive any other inputs, then there's
- 5:26not really a risk here. Like if only
- 5:27these two things apply, there's a lot
- 5:29less of a security concern. Or if there
- 5:32is untrusted content coming in and we do
- 5:34have an exfiltration vector, but there's
- 5:36no private information for the agent to
- 5:37access, then again, the risk for our
- 5:40agent goes down significantly. But like
- 5:43I already said, all three of these are
- 5:44always going to apply to our second
- 5:46brains. They have all three by default.
- 5:48It's really hard to make a useful second
- 5:51brain without being exposed to the
- 5:53lethal trifecta.
- 5:55Okay, so cool. What's the point you're
- 5:56trying to make here? Well, hear me out
- 5:58on this. If we are really forced to be
- 6:00exposed to the lethal trifecta with our
- 6:03second brain cuz that's the only way
- 6:04that it's useful, then what it means is
- 6:06we have to be very careful about our
- 6:08implementation cuz we want to limit each
- 6:10one of these pillars as much as
- 6:12possible. And honestly, Openclaw and
- 6:15other solutions that are already out
- 6:17there, they don't do a very good job
- 6:20limiting especially the private data
- 6:22access and the exfiltration vectors.
- 6:24They've been doing like Openclaw's been
- 6:25doing a lot of work recently on handling
- 6:27prompt injection attacks and I have to
- 6:29hand it to them. Some of the security
- 6:31risks and other things that were a big
- 6:33deal at first have been addressed. And
- 6:35so Openclaw is something that is
- 6:37constantly evolving, but there still are
- 6:39a lot of security issues and the main
- 6:41problem, even outside of the, you know,
- 6:44issues in the code base itself, is that
- 6:46it is a massive code base that you don't
- 6:48understand. You're running something
- 6:50that it's hard for you to adjust
- 6:52yourself. It's hard for you to
- 6:54understand. You're giving so much
- 6:55control to an AI agent and you don't
- 6:57really know in what ways you're actually
- 6:59giving control. Like you don't have
- 7:01understanding of how the lethal trifecta
- 7:04is really affecting you. And so when you
- 7:06build your own, you actually get to
- 7:08control what you build. You define the
- 7:10permissions up front. You create the
- 7:12foundation so you get to layer on the
- 7:14capabilities as you evolve your second
- 7:16brain versus just running something that
- 7:18works and does way too much out of the
- 7:20box right away. And yes, it does mean
- 7:23that it is more work for us to create
- 7:25our own second brain and not just use
- 7:26something out of the box. But in the
- 7:28end, you're going to create something
- 7:29that is customized to exactly what you
- 7:32need and it's going to be a lot simpler,
- 7:34following the classic advice we've
- 7:36always had for building AI agents. You
- 7:38just want to work with simple composable
- 7:41patterns. And yeah, for a lot of the
- 7:43second brain that I'll show you here,
- 7:44it's just Claude code with skills that
- 7:46drives most of the capability here. It's
- 7:48a beautiful thing. And then for a lot of
- 7:51the rest of the architecture that I'll
- 7:52cover with you in just a second here,
- 7:54the beautiful thing here is we're not
- 7:56just building it from scratch. As much
- 7:59as I just dissed Openclaw for being a
- 8:02security risk, it is a beautifully
- 8:05crafted application. Like don't get me
- 8:07wrong, Openclaw is very impressive and
- 8:09there's a reason that it really took the
- 8:11internet by storm. And so we're not
- 8:13going to ignore it, but we're also not
- 8:14going to run it directly. Instead, what
- 8:17we're going to do is take inspiration
- 8:19from Openclaw. So literally as I built
- 8:21my second brain on top of Claude code, I
- 8:24pointed it to the Openclaw GitHub
- 8:26repository cuz it's fully open source
- 8:28and I said, "Look here and see how they
- 8:30implement the memory layer with the
- 8:31soul.md and the user.md. I want you to
- 8:34see how they implement the heartbeat for
- 8:36the proactive part of the agent." And it
- 8:38took a lot of inspiration from that code
- 8:40base and brought the things that I liked
- 8:42about it into my own version, but I
- 8:44still get to maintain control and build
- 8:46up the exact permissions and
- 8:48capabilities I'm giving to my agent over
- 8:49time. That is the big unlock here. So we
- 8:52build it ourselves, but we take
- 8:54inspiration from what's already out
- 8:55there so that we can stand on the
- 8:57shoulder of giants. So with that, let's
- 8:59actually get into the architecture now.
- 9:00I'll show you at a high level how I
- 9:02built each one of these components. Now,
- 9:04it would take a very long time to build
- 9:06the entire thing from scratch with you.
- 9:08That's also why I have the template as a
- 9:10starting point. But if you do want to
- 9:12see me build this entire second brain
- 9:15from scratch, I'm running a special
- 9:174-hour workshop in the Dynamis community
- 9:19this Friday, April 3rd at 11:00 a.m.
- 9:22Central Time where I will take this
- 9:24starter template that I'm showing you
- 9:25right now and show you what it looks
- 9:27like to build everything live, taking
- 9:29inspiration from solutions like
- 9:31Openclaw. So by the end of it, you'll
- 9:32have your own working second brain with
- 9:34everything I'm about to cover with you.
- 9:36So check that out if you are interested.
- 9:38Otherwise, let's go ahead and get right
- 9:39into the architecture here. So the first
- 9:42big thing that I took inspiration from
- 9:44with Openclaw is the memory layer. So if
- 9:47you've seen Openclaw before, you'll
- 9:49recognize some of these files like the
- 9:51soul.md, the user.md, the memory.md.
- 9:55That architecture is genius and it's so
- 9:57simple. As part of the power of our
- 9:59second brain is that we're managing
- 10:01things with just markdown documents,
- 10:03which is also why Obsidian is such a
- 10:05powerful tool to use alongside Claude
- 10:08Code for your second brain. So, I talk
- 10:10to my brain with Claude Code, but then
- 10:13Obsidian is my canvas to view things
- 10:15like the diagrams that it generates for
- 10:17me like we're looking at right here, all
- 10:19of my different documents, so I can like
- 10:21load up the user.md like we're looking
- 10:23at right here. So, as it evolves this
- 10:25over time, I can watch this and even,
- 10:27you know, correct some things that I
- 10:28need to. And so, within my memory folder
- 10:32that I have right here in my Obsidian
- 10:33vault, I have everything that we're
- 10:35going to get into here. Actually, quite
- 10:37a few things. I manage my entire life
- 10:39with my second brain now. So, we have
- 10:41the user.md that I just showed you, the
- 10:43memory.md, so keeping track of all my
- 10:45key decisions that I'm making every
- 10:47single day. Like these are some of the
- 10:48key decisions that I made as I was first
- 10:50building my custom second brain. And
- 10:53then we have the soul.md, so this is the
- 10:55personality that I give to my second
- 10:57brain. And again, just taking this
- 10:58directly from Open Claw cuz I love this
- 11:01approach. There's no security issues
- 11:03with this part of Open Claw, so I'm just
- 11:05leaning right into it.
- 11:07And all of these core files that we have
- 11:09in our memory layer inspired by Open
- 11:11Claw, we're bringing them right into the
- 11:14context of our Claude Code up front
- 11:16through a session start hook. So, we
- 11:18automatically load the soul, user, and
- 11:20memory.mds into the context of our
- 11:23Claude Code. And hooks are actually a
- 11:25pretty important part of our Claude Code
- 11:27second brain beyond this as well because
- 11:29we also have a pre-compact hook. So,
- 11:31whenever our conversation is getting
- 11:33really, really long, we have to do a
- 11:34memory compaction or move on to another
- 11:36conversation, we need to make sure that
- 11:38we save this conversation to our daily
- 11:41log because we want our second brain to
- 11:44learn from every single conversation.
- 11:47So, we build up this quite long daily
- 11:50log every single day. And then we have
- 11:52this daily reflection process. So, this
- 11:54happens through just a cron job. I run
- 11:56this once a day. This uses the Claude
- 11:58Agent SDK under the hood, and it just
- 12:00goes through this promotion process cuz
- 12:02we have this super long raw daily log
- 12:05from all of our conversations. We have
- 12:06to figure out what do we care about
- 12:09remembering all of the time, right? Like
- 12:11what should we promote to the memory.md
- 12:13file that is always loaded into the
- 12:15context of our Claude Code. So, it
- 12:17extracts things like key decisions,
- 12:19lessons learned, important facts. This
- 12:21is one of the most important parts that
- 12:23of our system that allows our agent to
- 12:26evolve over time.
- 12:28And then we do the same thing whenever
- 12:29we end a conversation as well. I mean,
- 12:31especially cuz we aren't always
- 12:32compacting, right? Whenever we end a
- 12:34Claude Code session, we have the hook
- 12:36here that does the same thing. So, daily
- 12:38log is where we dump everything, and
- 12:40then we do our promotion process to, you
- 12:42know, this core file. This is probably
- 12:45the most important file for the entire
- 12:47second brain. And then another important
- 12:49thing here is the memory.md because it
- 12:51is a more concise version of our daily
- 12:53logs, it doesn't always have all the
- 12:55information we'd want to search back
- 12:57through. And so, we also do allow our
- 12:59agent to perform rag. So, we index all
- 13:03of our daily logs into a SQLite
- 13:05database, and you could do Postgres as
- 13:07well, doesn't really matter, but we
- 13:08index it there so our agent can search
- 13:10through all of the daily logs. If we
- 13:12want to find something really specific
- 13:14that might not have been quite important
- 13:16enough to make its way into the
- 13:17memory.md, but we still might want to
- 13:19reference that in a later conversation.
- 13:22So, when our agent performs rag, it has
- 13:24access to all of the documents that you
- 13:26see here in the Obsidian graph view,
- 13:29everything in our daily logs folder. I
- 13:31mean, take a look at this. I have a file
- 13:33for every single day since I've been
- 13:36running my second brain. Okay, so I
- 13:38started with the memory layer because it
- 13:40really is the core part of our second
- 13:42brain. But we also need to give arms to
- 13:44our second brain. They need to be able
- 13:46to do things on our behalf, and that is
- 13:49where skills come in. And Claude Code
- 13:52plus skills is all we need for our
- 13:54capabilities. Again, going back to our
- 13:56other diagram here, we want to focus on
- 13:58simple composable patterns. That's how
- 14:00you want to build agents all of the
- 14:02time, and that's all we need. We don't
- 14:04need other applications running to our
- 14:05second brain. We don't even need MCP
- 14:07servers. I literally use my skills for
- 14:09everything. And so, I'll show you inside
- 14:12the belly of the beast right here. This
- 14:13is my repo for my own second brain. It's
- 14:16pretty messy cuz this is where I do my
- 14:17work every single day. But if we look in
- 14:19the .claude/skills directory, take a
- 14:21look at this. There are so many skills
- 14:23that I'm using. I'm using all of these
- 14:24at least on a weekly basis. I've covered
- 14:27a lot of them on my channel before like
- 14:29the Excalidraw diagram skill. Link to
- 14:31the video for that right here. I love
- 14:34using this all of the time to generate
- 14:36diagrams like the one that you're
- 14:37looking at right here. And the thing is,
- 14:39for the Excalidraw diagram skill, all of
- 14:41the skills that I have for generating
- 14:43PowerPoints and helping me create
- 14:45YouTube scripts, like all of these, the
- 14:46memory layer is powering them, right?
- 14:49Like the skill is going to create a very
- 14:51generic diagram or a very generic
- 14:53YouTube script unless it is able to
- 14:55access the memory here, understanding
- 14:57how I've scripted similar videos in the
- 14:59past or just like going back to my
- 15:01memory.md or my user.md. So, the skills
- 15:05are made very specific to me through,
- 15:07you know, some of the prompting in the
- 15:08skill itself, but especially because
- 15:10every single conversation, the memory is
- 15:12powering all the capabilities that I
- 15:14leverage through my skills. And then one
- 15:16of the core skills that I have for my
- 15:18second brain is one that explains all of
- 15:21my direct integrations and exactly how
- 15:23to use the APIs that I've set up for to
- 15:26work with my services like Gmail, Asana,
- 15:29Circle where I have my Dynamis AI
- 15:31community, Slack. Wherever I am doing
- 15:33work, my second brain has access to it
- 15:36as well. And I have a skill that
- 15:37explains all the capabilities that it
- 15:39has right here. Now, the important thing
- 15:41that makes this different than what you
- 15:44would have with Open Claw by default is
- 15:46I'm very careful through my Python API
- 15:49layer the different capabilities that I
- 15:51give it access to through these
- 15:53different APIs. And so, it can only read
- 15:56my Slack. It can't actually post
- 15:58messages. It can't create things in
- 16:00Google Docs. It can't manage my
- 16:02calendar, but it can tell me events that
- 16:03I have. But sometimes where necessary, I
- 16:06do give it right access. Like it can
- 16:08create Gmail drafts, it just can't send
- 16:11emails. I can have it manage Asana
- 16:12tasks, but only in certain projects. And
- 16:14so, because this is my own second brain,
- 16:16I have full control. I can [snorts] be
- 16:18very, very nitpicky about the
- 16:20permissions that I'm actually giving it,
- 16:22and I can evolve it over time if I want,
- 16:24but I'm starting with sort of like a
- 16:25zero-trust mindset. Like let's start
- 16:27with just read-only, and then add in
- 16:29capabilities and be very controlled
- 16:31about that. And for all of my direct
- 16:33integrations, I've implemented them with
- 16:35a very common pattern. And what that
- 16:37means is I can have my second brain
- 16:39evolve itself creating new integrations
- 16:42by just one-shotting them with Claude
- 16:43Code. It is so easy because it can
- 16:45reference existing integrations and its
- 16:48memory of how it's built things in the
- 16:49past to basically do the whole planning
- 16:52part of the AI coding workflow itself.
- 16:55And that's also how I built my chat
- 16:57interface. So, Slack is created in a way
- 17:00where I could just copy this for any
- 17:01other platform I want to integrate like
- 17:03Telegram or Discord. And so, being able
- 17:06to have your second brain reference
- 17:07itself as well as other solutions like
- 17:10Open Claw just means that it's very It's
- 17:13just incredibly easy to build on top of
- 17:16your second brain. All right, so the
- 17:18last thing that I want to cover with my
- 17:19second brain before I get into the
- 17:21template for you is the heartbeat. And
- 17:23this really brings everything together
- 17:25because it's where we build the
- 17:26proactive nature of our second brain. It
- 17:28can start to anticipate our needs and do
- 17:31things on our behalf that we want it to
- 17:33without us having to even ask it. And
- 17:36so, we have all of these direct
- 17:37integrations with these services like
- 17:40Gmail and my my task management, but I
- 17:43don't always want to be the one to
- 17:44prompt it to do things for me. Like what
- 17:46if I wanted to automatically draft
- 17:48replies to a bunch of my emails? That's
- 17:51where the heartbeat comes in. So, it's
- 17:53going to gather information through all
- 17:56of the APIs with the direct
- 17:57integrations. So, we have this
- 17:59deterministic part before we even go
- 18:00into Claude Code where we're gathering a
- 18:03context around my life that's happening
- 18:05right now. And then we send all of that
- 18:07pertinent information into Claude Code.
- 18:09So, we're using the Agent SDK because
- 18:11we're invoking Claude Code
- 18:12programmatically. I'm not prompting it
- 18:14myself. So, I have a preconfigured
- 18:16prompt where it's that plus all of the
- 18:18information from the APIs that's sent
- 18:21into Claude Code so it can reason about
- 18:22like, "Okay, let me draft these replies.
- 18:24Let me handle this pull request in
- 18:26GitHub. Like what do I need to help code
- 18:27with right now?" It thinks about all
- 18:29that. It acts on that. And then it sends
- 18:31a notification to me in Slack to keep me
- 18:33in the loop for everything that I got
- 18:35going on in my life and the ways that
- 18:36it's helping me proactively. And so, I
- 18:38do have to blur a lot of this here
- 18:39because it's pretty sensitive
- 18:40information, but just showing you an
- 18:42example of what it looks like for my
- 18:43second brain to be sending me these
- 18:45alerts. And then if I want to, I can
- 18:46always reply to one of these in a thread
- 18:48in Slack to continue the conversation
- 18:51for something that it did for me. So,
- 18:52this is just a starting point, but it is
- 18:55a beautiful starting point. The
- 18:56heartbeat is the thing that saves me the
- 18:57most time out of everything in the
- 18:59second brain.
- 19:01All right, so now that you know how my
- 19:03second brain works, I want to help you
- 19:05build it. Now, like I said at the start
- 19:08of the video, I'm not just going to give
- 19:10my entire code base away cuz it also
- 19:12defeats the purpose of you building your
- 19:14own. Otherwise, I'm just going to be
- 19:15building another Open Claw. I want you
- 19:18to create the foundation for yourself,
- 19:20but still give you a starting point. And
- 19:22I thought long and hard about how to do
- 19:24that. How do I help you scope out the
- 19:26work without giving you a template and
- 19:28just another Open Claw? And so, what
- 19:30I've come up with here is a system. So,
- 19:32I have this requirements document that
- 19:34you can fill out, and then you can feed
- 19:36this in as context to your coding agent
- 19:38to create the PRD. This is your initial
- 19:42scope of work. It'll have all the phases
- 19:44to build everything in the second brain
- 19:46that I've gone over with you. And
- 19:48everything that you're looking at right
- 19:49here is in the GitHub repo that I'll
- 19:50link to in the description. So, you just
- 19:52clone the repository, find this my
- 19:54second brain requirements markdown
- 19:56document, and then you can edit
- 19:58everything here. So, you fill in all the
- 19:59blanks to describe exactly what you want
- 20:01your second brain to help you with, the
- 20:03level of permission and proactivity that
- 20:05you want. And then once you have this
- 20:07filled out, then you open your Claude
- 20:09code or code extra open coder whatever,
- 20:11and you run this skill, the create
- 20:13second brain PRD. You just have to give
- 20:16the path to your filled in requirements.
- 20:17So, right click, copy relative path,
- 20:19paste it in, and then boom, that is all
- 20:21you have to do. And I'll show you a live
- 20:22example of this in just a second here.
- 20:24But this will produce a requirements
- 20:26document that has all of the phases to
- 20:29build out everything that I've covered
- 20:31with you with my second brain. And so
- 20:33you're using what I built as a starting
- 20:34point, but because it's a PRD and not a
- 20:36code base, it's very easy to edit
- 20:39everything. tweak it to your heart's
- 20:40content to really customize it to you
- 20:42before you actually write a single line
- 20:44of code. And to make this even easier
- 20:46for you, I have an example of the
- 20:48requirements that's already filled out
- 20:50that you can use as a reference if you'd
- 20:52like. And this is what I'm going to show
- 20:53you right now. So, I just made up a
- 20:55random person here. You just share some
- 20:56information about you so it knows your
- 20:58name and your time zone and things like
- 20:59that. You check off the platforms that
- 21:02you want your second brain to integrate
- 21:03with. So, wherever you do your work, you
- 21:05want your second brain to live as well.
- 21:07And then listing out all the tasks that
- 21:09you want it to do. I even have examples
- 21:11for every part of the template for you
- 21:13to work off of. And then add in whatever
- 21:15you want. The proactivity level is also
- 21:17very important. So, it's whatever you're
- 21:19comfortable with. Do you want your agent
- 21:20to be an observer so that it's really
- 21:22just read only actions on everything? Or
- 21:25maybe you want to go so far as it's a
- 21:26partner. It can act autonomously even
- 21:28sending emails on your behalf. You can
- 21:30pick your level. Generally what I do is
- 21:33the advisor. That's what my second brain
- 21:34is. And then for security boundaries,
- 21:36like what do you want your agent to
- 21:37never do? We want to have a big emphasis
- 21:40on security for our planning and our
- 21:42implementation. Memory categories, what
- 21:45types of knowledge we want it to track
- 21:46and maintain and search through over
- 21:48time. The infrastructure, so where do we
- 21:50want to deploy this? Like maybe you want
- 21:52your second brain only ever running on
- 21:53your computer. Other times you might
- 21:55want it running remotely so it's
- 21:56accessible 24/7. So, hosted in some kind
- 21:59of droplet like in Digital Ocean or
- 22:01Hostinger, and then you can access it
- 22:02from Slack remotely. I have that set up
- 22:04as well.
- 22:06And then just uh laying out your
- 22:07priorities for integrations cuz that'll
- 22:09determine exactly how it creates the
- 22:11phases in the PRD. So, you fill in
- 22:14everything just like I've done here. And
- 22:16then I'll actually do this right now.
- 22:17I'll do {slash} create second brain PRD.
- 22:19I'll pass the path to this example here.
- 22:22And it's going to take a while cuz it's
- 22:24going to do a lot of research. It's
- 22:25going to take into account all the
- 22:27customizations that you want to specify.
- 22:29This is also where you could point it to
- 22:31a repository like open claw and say, "I
- 22:33want to take inspiration for how open
- 22:35claw did this or how Nemo claw did
- 22:37this." So, there's a lot of resources
- 22:39out there already that you can feed in
- 22:42to your coding agent. That's the beauty
- 22:43of using a coding agent here is you can
- 22:45customize things as much as you want.
- 22:46So, I'll come back once I have the PRD
- 22:49created. I'll show you what that looks
- 22:50like, too.
- 22:51And there we go. Our PRD is created. So,
- 22:54it outputs to the dot agents plans
- 22:56folder by default. Doesn't really matter
- 22:57where this is, but the important thing
- 22:59is that each of the phases that we have
- 23:01laid out in this PRD maps to everything
- 23:05that I've shown you in this diagram. And
- 23:06it's put in an order where we can build
- 23:08them one at a time. So, you can start by
- 23:10creating the memory foundation and
- 23:12you'll already have at least a part of a
- 23:14second brain that's pretty useful. And
- 23:16then you'll build in the hooks for
- 23:18context persistence and loading them
- 23:19into your sessions. You'll go on to
- 23:21building the memory search and then
- 23:23start getting into your integrations and
- 23:24the skills and adding in capabilities.
- 23:26You build it over time. We don't want to
- 23:28have our coding agent try to build your
- 23:29entire second brain in one shot. That is
- 23:31not going to work and it's going to be
- 23:33really hard to stay in the driver's seat
- 23:35of exactly what you're building in. So,
- 23:38that's why we do it in phases. And so,
- 23:40literally what you can do at this point,
- 23:41once you have your PRD, is you can go
- 23:44into a brand new Claude code session.
- 23:46You can point it to the PRD. Like I'll
- 23:48just copy this path, paste it in here,
- 23:50and say, "Let's build phase one." Right?
- 23:53Or if you have already built the first
- 23:54few phases, you can say, "Let's build
- 23:55phase four." And then you can kick off a
- 23:57planning session, figure out exactly
- 23:59what you want to build, if you want to
- 24:00tweak anything from the PRD. You go in,
- 24:03you create the code, you test it, and
- 24:04you can create your entire second brain
- 24:06this way in just a couple of days. It
- 24:09doesn't take long to get to the point
- 24:11where you have something as powerful as
- 24:13open claw, but it's entirely your own
- 24:15and it's a lot simpler to maintain and
- 24:18more secure. And so I would encourage
- 24:20you to try it out. I have the template
- 24:21and this diagram both in the GitHub repo
- 24:23linked in the description. Even if you
- 24:25already have a second brain, go through
- 24:27this process to get some inspiration to
- 24:29evolve what you already have. And
- 24:31remember, come and join Dynamis to be a
- 24:33part of the four-hour second brain
- 24:35workshop happening this Friday, April
- 24:383rd. I'm going to be building the entire
- 24:40thing from scratch, walking through it
- 24:42all in a lot more detail. So, I hope to
- 24:44see you there. And I hope that this
- 24:45video was a good starting point for you,
- 24:47even just showing you what goes into a
- 24:49powerful second brain that can save you
- 24:50hours and hours every single week. And
- 24:53so, if you appreciated this video and
- 24:54you're looking forward to more things on
- 24:56building agents and second brains, I
- 24:57would really appreciate a like and a
- 24:59subscribe. And with that, I will see you
- 25:01in the next video.
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