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Quick Start

Get your first insight in 15 minutes. Let's go.

Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have:

  • ☐ Claude Code installed (get it here)
  • ☐ Git installed
  • ☐ Basic terminal comfort
  • ☐ 15 minutes

New to command line? No worries. We'll walk through everything step by step.

The Three-Step Path

Step 1: Clone & Open (3 minutes)

# Clone the brain repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/8020brain.git

# Navigate into it
cd 8020brain

# Open in Claude Code
code .

What you should see: Claude Code opens with the brain folder in the sidebar.

Step 2: Configure Basics (7 minutes)

Try this now:

  1. Copy the example config:
cp CLAUDE.md.example ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md
  1. Open it in your editor:
open ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md

  1. Add your details:

    • Your name
    • Your company
    • Your role
    • Your focus areas

  2. Save the file

What this does: Sets your global preferences so Claude knows who you are and what you care about.

Step 3: Ask Your First Question (5 minutes)

Now let's see your brain in action.

Open Claude Code terminal and ask:

"What insights do I have about AI and business strategy?"

What happens:

  1. brain-advisor agent activates
  2. Searches your research indexes
  3. Synthesizes insights from multiple sources
  4. Returns answer with citations

Success looks like:

✅ You get an answer combining insights from 2+ sources ✅ Sources are cited (newsletter names, dates) ✅ Answer is relevant to your question

💡 Stuck? Ask in Circle - we're here to help!

What Can Go Wrong

"command not found"

Empty results or "no information found"

  • Your brain needs feeding → Go to Feeding Your Brain
  • This is normal if you just cloned - there's no research indexed yet

Authentication errors

You're Done!

If you got an answer synthesized from your research sources, your brain is working.

The brain-advisor agent just searched through potentially hundreds of newsletter summaries and YouTube transcripts to answer your question. That's the magic.

Next: Understand what just happened →

Quick Reference

Clone brain:

git clone [repo-url]
cd 8020brain

Configure:

cp CLAUDE.md.example ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md
open ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md

Ask questions:

"What do I know about [topic]?"

Get help:

Next
Core Concepts