AIOS Second Brain · Installation Guide

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Want to set all of this up live, with someone by your side?

We install your second brain with you, on a call, and connect it to the tools you already use. You leave with the system running on your own machine.

See how it works

Who your Second Brain is for

The base vault is free, and it is what this guide installs. It serves people who work on their own. Company mode is installed with our advisory, on top of the same folder structure.

Free

Solo founders, consultants and creators

The vault treats your own activity as the company. Projects, clients, decisions and what you study live in the same place, under a single context.

Install now

Company mode · with advisory

Businesses and teams

The vault holds what the company does, for whom, with which tools, and what the AI never does there without asking. We install it with you and connect your team's tools.

Sales
Marketing
Customer service
Operations
Leadership

Install at my company

00 Inbox/What came in and has not been routed yet
01 Daily/The record of each work session
02 Context/me.mdWho you are. The AI reads it at the start of every session
03 Intelligence/Meetings, decisions and research
03 Projects/Active projects, each with its own history
04 Resources/Tools, frameworks and reference material
05 Archives/What went out of use and was not deleted
knowledge/Permanent knowledge, already distilled
AIOS/The rules, the maps and the skills index
prompts/Ready-made prompts to copy and paste

Before you start

Claude Pro or Max

For Claude Code

Required

Node.js 18+

To install Claude Code

Required

Git

To clone the vault

Required

Python 3

For the vault's hooks and checkers

Required

Installation: 4 steps

Step 1

Install Obsidian

The app where your vault lives. Free, no account needed.

Go to obsidian.md/download. The page shows Mac, Windows and Linux in one place. Find your system and click its download button.

Mac: download the .dmg file, open it and drag the Obsidian icon into the Applications folder.

Windows: download the .exe installer, run it and follow the instructions. Obsidian opens by itself when it finishes.

Linux: download the .AppImage and run chmod +x Obsidian*.AppImage, or install via Flatpak.

You do not need to create a vault or sign in yet. Just install and open the app. Already have Obsidian? Skip to Step 2.

Step 2

Install Claude Code

The AI that powers the whole system.

You need Node.js 18+, Git and Python 3 installed first. Download all three from their official sites if you do not have them yet.

Open your terminal and run the command below. When it asks, sign in with your account. No account yet? Create one at claude.ai.

Claude Code requires an active Claude Pro or Max subscription (from USD 20/month).

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

Step 3

Create the folder and open Claude Code in it

This folder becomes your Second Brain. Claude builds everything inside it.

Create a folder somewhere clean, for example second-brain inside Documents.

Do not use Downloads or the Desktop, and do not put a space in the name. macOS locks those two folders behind permissions, and a space in the name breaks some commands.

In the terminal, go into the folder and run claude. You do not need to clone anything by hand: Claude does that in the next step.

$ cd ~/Documents/second-brain
$ claude

From now on, always open Claude Code and Obsidian pointing at this folder.

Step 4

Paste the setup sentence

One sentence. Claude clones the vault and interviews you.

Inside Claude Code, paste the sentence below with the link included. Without the link, Claude does not know what to clone. Accept the permissions when it asks to run git.

With the vault in the folder, it tells you the context is blank and opens /setup: nine short questions, one at a time. You can hand it your website or a file to draw from, and you can answer "skip" to any of them.

At the end it shows what it saved in 02 Context/me.md. Close it, open it again and ask "who are we?". If it answers without reading anything on the spot, your second brain is alive.

> Create my second brain with this repository: https://github.com/rodolfoburque/aios-second-brain

After installing, your Second Brain is live

With the vault configured, everything runs through Claude Code opened inside the folder. It remembers context, records sessions, and processes meetings and study material. This is what you can do from day one.

open Claude Code in the folder

Pick up where you left off

When the session opens, the vault hands the AI who you are and what happened last time. You do not re-explain anything: ask "what did we do last session?" and the answer comes from the record.

/assistente

The day's operation

The central command. It resumes work, runs the daily and weekly review, looks after tasks and memory, processes meeting transcripts and switches the writing style.

process this into the vault

Turn material into a note

Send a link, a file or pasted text. Claude reads it, distills it and saves the note in the right folder, with its properties filled in and linked to the notes that already exist.

paste a transcript

Meeting intelligence

Paste the transcript of a meeting or a class. The system decides what is worth turning into knowledge, records decisions and next steps, and files it in the right place.

ask the team

Agents that do the whole job

The vault comes with agents for research, prospecting, meetings and assistance. Each one does the job from start to finish and saves the result in the vault.

/organizar

Tidy up what was left loose

It finds orphan notes, routes them to the right structure, links them to the others and archives what is redundant. It does not touch the system folders and asks when in doubt.

/importar-contexto

Bring in what another AI already knows

It generates a prompt for you to paste into ChatGPT, Gemini or another Claude. The answer comes back to the vault and becomes real context.

eiirp

Close the session

One word at the end of the work. Everything the session produced is filed in the right place and the day's record is written, so the next session continues from there.

What a typical day with your Second Brain looks like

Start of the day

Resume the session

Open Obsidian, if you want to see the vault
Open the terminal inside the vault folder
Run claude
Ask where we left off
Read the summary and start working

During the day

Work and capture

Send links and files to become notes
Paste meeting transcripts
Ask it to record decisions and update projects
Call an agent to research or prospect
Run /organizar when notes pile up

End of the day

Save the session

Type eiirp
Claude files what the session produced
Decisions and open items go into the day's record
The next session continues exactly from here

Installation packs

The base vault organizes your knowledge. Each pack adds an entire line of work: the ready-made processes, from start to finish, installed in the same vault.

TOOLSSecond Brain ProYour vault gets sharper every week without you tidying it.Pack with 10 processes TOOLSAI TeamEvery repeated job gets an agent that runs it start to finish.Pack with 10 processes SKILLSOffer & CopyYour offer gets built piece by piece, with a method.Pack with 16 processes SKILLSPagesYour page goes live audited, from requirements to launch.Pack with 13 processes SKILLSContentYour post of the week comes out ready, from topic to carousel.Pack with 14 processes SKILLSProspectingYour outreach goes out with the message ready and proof of the pain.Pack with 10 processes

See all packs

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to pay for anything?

The base vault is free, and so are Obsidian, Git, Node.js and Python. Claude Code requires a Claude Pro or Max subscription (from USD 20/month). The installation packs, company mode and the advisory are paid, and optional.

Do I need to know how to code?

No. You need to be comfortable copying and pasting a few commands into the terminal. Everything else happens inside Claude Code, in plain conversation.

Which operating systems are supported?

Windows, Mac and Linux. Windows is the most tested environment. On Mac and Linux there is one extra step: copying those systems' configuration file over the default one, because Python goes by another name there.

Can I use it alongside an Obsidian vault I already have?

Yes. Obsidian opens several vaults and you switch between them. AIOS Second Brain lives in its own folder and does not touch your current vault.

I have used another AI for a long time. Do I lose that history?

No. The /importar-contexto command generates a prompt for you to paste into the other AI. It hands back what it knows about you, and that goes into the vault as context.

Can I add my own skills?

Yes. Each skill is a folder in .claude/skills/. After creating one, add a line to AIOS/index.md and run the skills checker, which confirms it is complete and shows up where it should.

What happens to my data? Does anything go to the cloud?

The vault files stay on your machine. When you use Claude Code, the content of the files it is working on is sent to Anthropic to generate the answers, the same as using Claude normally. Anthropic's privacy policy applies.

Can I redo the setup to update my context?

Yes. Run /setup again inside the vault and answer once more whatever has changed.

What does Live Bubbles have to do with this?

It is the vault's dashboard. It shows the topics of your notes as bubbles: size by volume in the period and color by change. A freshly installed vault has almost no bubbles. They appear as the notes are born.

Ready to build your Second Brain?

The base vault is free: follow the 4 steps above. If you would rather set it up with someone by your side, or for your company, we install it with you.

Clone on GitHub Install at my company See the packs See all skills