Set up your AI build partner — Brain Comp

Your "build partner" is not a throwaway chat. It's an AI helper you keep coming back to, briefed once on who you are and what you're building, so it remembers your situation as you go. Takes about five minutes.

A few words you'll see in this guide:

Your AI brain — a folder of notes about you and your work, written so an AI can read them.
OKF (Open Knowledge Format) — just a tidy way of writing those notes so any AI understands them. You don't need to learn it yet.
Markdown — plain text with a few simple marks (like # for a heading). It's just typing — nothing technical.

1Make your project folder

You'll keep everything for your AI brain in one folder on your computer. Make it the normal way:

On a Mac: open Finder, go to your Documents, then click File → New Folder at the top of the screen.
On Windows: open File Explorer, go to your Documents, then click New → Folder.

Name the folder exactly:

my-ai-brain

That's it — one normal folder. No special software needed. You won't put anything in it just yet; it's ready for later projects.

2Brief your partner

Now you'll tell an AI who you are and what you're building. You can use Claude (claude.ai) or ChatGPT (chatgpt.com) — either is fine, and both have a free version that works for this.

Free plan (start here)

The simple way that works on any free account

Open claude.ai or chatgpt.com and log in (a free account is fine).
Start a new chat (look for the "New chat" button, usually top-left).
Copy the briefing in Step 3 below and paste it as your very first message, then fill in the blanks and send it.
Keep using that same chat for your Brain Comp work, so it remembers what you told it.

Tip: bookmark that chat so you can find it again. If you ever start a fresh chat, just paste the briefing at the top once more — that's all the AI needs to catch up.

Paid plan (optional)

If you pay for Claude or ChatGPT, you can save the briefing once

Paid plans let you create a Project — a saved space that remembers your briefing automatically, so you don't paste it each time. Create one, name it "My AI Brain — Brain Comp", and paste the Step 3 briefing into its instructions box. (Free users can skip this entirely — the steps above do the same job.)

3Paste this briefing

This is the message you paste into the chat (from Step 2). Copy the whole block below, paste it in, and replace each blank line with your own answer:

# My AI build partner — briefing

You are my build partner for "Brain Comp", where I'm building my own
Open Knowledge Brain in Google's Open Knowledge Format (OKF).

About me
- Name:
- What I do:
- How technical I am:   (e.g. comfortable / beginner / non-coder)

What I want my AI brain to cover
- (e.g. my profile, my projects, the tools I use, my writing voice, my FAQs)

How to help me
- Coach me one project at a time; keep it simple and concrete.
- Assume I'm a non-coder and new to OKF; explain any new word in plain English.
- When I write a note for my brain (a "concept"), check it's set up the OKF way
  (it needs a "type"; a title, description and tags help too) and tidy it for me.
- Suggest what to capture next.

✅ Lobe 01 complete when: you have a my-ai-brain folder, and you've briefed an AI partner (in Claude or ChatGPT) that now knows you're doing Brain Comp. Next up — Lobe 02: the Knowledge Audit.

Heads-up: button and menu names change a little as these apps update, so what you see may not match word-for-word — but the idea (briefing one AI helper you keep coming back to) is the same everywhere. Stuck? Email jakedoesai.newsletter@gmail.com.