Evolving Brain — Template

A template for building your own AI-native second brain / Life OS. Fork it, make your fork private, run the setup, and let it grow.

This is the public template. Do not fill in your actual identity, goals, or journal entries here. Fork it first, go private, then onboard.

One-command setup (after you fork and clone)

git clone https://github.com//.git evolving-brain
cd evolving-brain
bash scripts/setup.sh

That script verifies your tools, checks the bundled Obsidian plugins, creates Vault/.env from the template, and opens the vault in Obsidian. When Obsidian prompts “Trust author and enable plugins?”, click YES.

You get three plugins pre-installed and enabled:

• internetVin Terminal — embedded terminal in Obsidian
• Agentfiles — browse and edit AI agent skill / command files from inside Obsidian
• Excalidraw — sketch diagrams and hand-drawn mind maps

All three are MIT-licensed and bundled directly in .obsidian/plugins/ so a clone gives you a working environment with zero plugin hunting.

Then, inside Claude Code, run /brain-onboard (or /brain-discover to scan your machine for markdown sources first).

What this is

A markdown vault designed to be the source of truth for a personal AI assistant that actually remembers you. Capture tools (Heptabase, Apple Notes, voice memos, meeting notetakers, Claude on your phone) drop raw content into an .inbox/. A processor runs on a schedule, synthesizes it into living logs and entity pages, and commits back. A nightly dream cycle enriches entities, fixes broken links, and surfaces contradictions while you sleep. Any Claude surface can read the vault via a thin MCP server.

The core insights:

You are a writer compiling, not a filing clerk. The question is never “where do I put this fact?” It is: “what does this mean, and how does it connect to what you already know?” — Farzaa’s wiki-gen-skill

Every page is a dossier. Compiled truth on top (your current best understanding, rewritten when evidence changes). Append-only timeline on the bottom (the evidence trail that never gets edited). — Inspired by garrytan/gbrain

See ATTRIBUTION.md for the full credit list.

The three-folder core

• 0 - Identity — who you are (core, stable, changes rarely)
• 1 - Aspirations — who you are becoming (goals, habits, projects, open problems)
• 2 - Live Logs — the raw signal of your life (actions, decisions, emotions, learning, reflections, plus Claude’s own action log)

Everything else (3 - Daily Journal through 9 - Operations, People, Onboarding, Vault, Archive, scripts) is scaffolding that feeds into or operates on the three core folders above.

How to use this template (step by step)

1. Fork + go private

gh repo fork  --clone=false