Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Quick Start

You can have Jesse running in about 10 minutes.

1. Create Your Vault

Go to the Jesse GitHub page, click the green Code button, then Download ZIP. Extract the zip file and find the template/ folder inside — copy it somewhere convenient (like your Documents folder) and rename it to something like jesse-vault. This is your vault.

If you’re comfortable with the command line, you can also clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/tag1consulting/jesse.git
cp -r jesse/template/ ~/jesse-vault/

2. Choose Your Editor

Obsidian is free and works well for this. Its [[wiki-links]] turn your vault into a navigable knowledge base, and it syncs to your phone if you pay for Obsidian Sync (~$4/month). But any markdown editor works. VS Code, Logseq, Typora, or vim in a terminal. The vault is just files.

If you use Obsidian, open your vault directory as a new vault. Install the Reminders plugin if you want date-based reminders (see the reminders recipe).

3. Edit the Instruction File

Open JESSE.md in your vault. This is the file that tells the AI agent what to do. The template has a working starter configuration, but you need to customize it:

  • Replace the placeholder name and role with yours.
  • Review your preferences and rules.
  • Browse the Knowledge/ files – they hold your personal knowledge base (people, reminders, writing preferences) and the routines JESSE.md points to (daily routine, maintenance tasks). Customize these too.

If you’re using Claude’s Cowork mode, rename JESSE.md to CLAUDE.md. Cowork picks it up automatically.

4. Connect Your AI Agent

Open your AI agent of choice and point it at your vault directory.

Claude Cowork: Open Cowork, select your vault folder. CLAUDE.md loads automatically.

Claude Code: Run claude from your vault directory. It reads CLAUDE.md as project instructions.

Other agents: Any agent with file access and tool-calling capabilities can use the instruction file. Point it at the vault and include the contents of JESSE.md in your system prompt or project instructions.

5. Run Your First Session

Ask the agent to run the start-of-day routine. On the very first run, Dashboard.md won’t exist yet, so the agent will detect this and run the first-run setup instead (defined in Knowledge/Jesse-Guidelines/First-Run-Setup.md). It will:

  • Ask you a few questions about your name, role, and priorities.
  • Detect which tools are connected (email, calendar, messaging).
  • Build Dashboard.md and Today.md.
  • Deliver a short briefing with whatever it found.

On all subsequent sessions, the agent skips setup and runs the full start-of-day routine from Knowledge/Jesse-Guidelines/Start-of-Day-Routine.md.

6. Iterate

The first session won’t be perfect. The instruction file will have rules that are ambiguous for your situation, and the agent will make choices you’d make differently. That’s expected.

Work with the agent to tighten the instruction file. Add rules for the situations you encounter. Within a few days you’ll have something that genuinely reduces the overhead of managing a complex workload.

The instruction file is a living document. Revise it every time something goes wrong or you learn a better way. Don’t try to build the whole thing on day one.

What’s Next