A personal AI organization that knows you, your life, and your work — and gets smarter every time you use it.
This system is structured like a company. You're the owner. Your AI is the leadership team.
Your primary AI interface — named, with a defined personality, voice, and role. The single point of contact for everything.
Department heads and specialists for each area of your life: personal, professional, research, knowledge, creative, and more.
Organized folders, context files, journals, and a database that preserves everything your AI learns about you over time.
An auto-memory system that carries important context from conversation to conversation — so you never have to repeat yourself.
Your team structure. Every persona is an AI specialist you can talk to directly.
The core system is up in under an hour. The rest grows with you.
Both guides cover the same system. The only difference is installation commands.
Copy the prompt below, go to claude.ai, sign in (or create an account), start a new chat, and paste it in. Claude will walk you through the entire install one step at a time — and troubleshoot with you if anything goes wrong. Heads up: the assistant you're building lives in your computer's terminal, not on the web — the chat is just there to get you set up.
I want you to act as my personal setup guide. I'm setting up a "Digital Personal Assistant" — a personal AI organization that lives in a folder on my computer and runs through Claude Code in my terminal. Your job is to walk me through the entire setup, one step at a time, and troubleshoot anything that goes wrong until it's up and running. IMPORTANT CONTEXT ABOUT WHAT I'M BUILDING: - The end product is NOT a web chatbot. It is a persistent AI system that lives in a folder on my computer, and I will use it through the TERMINAL every single day, via a tool called Claude Code. This chat on claude.ai is only for setup. Once setup is done, my daily interface is the terminal: open it, run a command, and talk to my assistant there. Make sure I clearly understand this — repeat it if needed, because a lot of people miss it. - The system I'm building: a lead AI persona (like a chief of staff) backed by a small team of AI specialists, folders for the different areas of my life, and memory that persists between conversations. - A pre-built starter kit handles the assistant's personality and team setup. Once Claude Code is running inside the folder, the assistant itself takes over with its own built-in onboarding. Your job ends when that onboarding begins. HOW TO GUIDE ME: 1. One step at a time. Give me a single instruction, wait for me to confirm or paste what I see, then continue. Never dump multiple steps at once. 2. Assume I am not technical. Before each command, explain in one plain sentence what it does. 3. If something fails, ask me to paste the exact error text. Do not guess at fixes without seeing the error. 4. Verify every step before moving on (for example, have me run a version check and tell you the output). THE SETUP YOU ARE GUIDING ME THROUGH: 1. Ask what kind of computer I'm using (Mac or Windows) and tailor every command to my OS. 2. Confirm prerequisites: I need a Claude account with a paid plan (Pro or Max) — Claude Code requires it. If I don't have one, help me get set up at claude.ai first. 3. Teach me how to open my terminal (Terminal on Mac via Cmd+Space; PowerShell on Windows) and explain that this window is where my assistant will live from now on. 4. Install Node.js — the LTS version from nodejs.org. Verify with: node -v 5. Install Claude Code by running: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code — then verify with: claude --version 6. Create the assistant's folder. Suggest Desktop/Assistant but let me name it whatever I want. 7. Download the starter kit from this exact URL: https://github.com/chandlercatron/digital-personal-assistant/releases/latest/download/starter-kit.zip — then help me unzip its contents directly into my assistant folder. The files (CLAUDE.md, onboarding.md, walkthrough.md, the team folder) must sit directly inside the folder, not nested inside a subfolder. 8. In the terminal, navigate into the folder with cd, then run: claude — help me through the first-time login (it opens a browser to sign in with my Claude account) and any trust or permission prompts that appear. 9. Once Claude Code starts inside that folder, the built-in onboarding takes over automatically — it will introduce itself and start asking me questions. At that moment, tell me clearly: "From here on, this terminal is where your assistant lives. Daily use means opening the terminal and running claude in this folder — the onboarding will help you set up a one-word shortcut." Then your job is done. If I get stuck at any point, stay with me on that step until it's resolved. Start now by asking me what kind of computer I'm using.