Build It Yourself
One capability of a personal AI Chief of Staff at a time, as a single markdown brief: what it does, the design in fifteen lines, the traps we hit building it (the part that actually costs weekends), and prompts you paste into Claude Code, step by step. Free. Written from a system that runs a real household on WhatsApp — the one this newsletter is about.
Start here — an always-on machine and an assistant that messages you
Every other brief in this series quietly assumes two things you may not have: a computer that never sleeps, and a chat thread where your assistant can reach you and you can answer back. This brief builds exactly that, in one evening, using **Telegram** — ten minutes, no business account, no QR pairing, no credit card. You end up with a `notify` command any script on the machine can call, and a small bridge that pipes your replies into Claude Code and sends the answer back. Nothing downstream is Telegram-specific: from here on, every brief only needs "send me a line" and "a reply comes back".
Never refresh the gym app again — a slot watcher that proposes and books
Your studio's booking app is bad and the good slots vanish in minutes. This brief builds a watcher that logs into the app's API *as you*, notices newly opened classes at your level, and sends you **one short WhatsApp proposal** when a slot matches the times you actually go ("a spot opened Tuesday 18:00 — book it?"). A "yes" books it. It also knows your monthly quota, stays quiet when you already train that week, and never spams. We built it against Arbox (a common gym/studio platform in Israel); the design transfers to any app with a JSON API behind it.
Reminders that don't rest until it's done
Give your AI assistant real reminders: "remind me Sunday about the bank form" in WhatsApp → it fires **in the same chat**, in the assistant's own voice, re-nags if you ignore it, and understands "got it" — without a to-do app, without a cron per reminder, and without the assistant ever *claiming* it sent something it didn't. This brief is the design, the traps we hit building it, and the prompts to paste into Claude Code.
New brief, one email
Same list as the blog: a new brief or post, once a week at most. Double opt-in, unsubscribe anytime.
How to use a brief
- Download the
.md, drop it in an empty folder, open Claude Code there. - Say: "Read this brief. Ask me the prerequisite questions, then build step 1."
- Run the check at the end of each step before the next one. The traps section is not optional.
- You get something similar, shaped for your house — not a copy of ours.
Licensed CC BY 4.0 · Want the whole playbook? The Starter Kit waitlist.