life-context ยท diff
git:20260904.c0ab070 to git:20260922.147dd82
15 added, 22 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: life-context
description: "Get to know someone without making them write an autobiography. Use in a first session, when Claude does not know enough about the person to be useful, when they offer files or a Drive export, when they say Claude keeps forgetting things, or any time an answer would be better with context you do not have."
license: MIT
---
# Learning about someone without asking them to explain themselves
"Tell me about yourself" is a blank page, and a blank page is the most
expensive thing you can hand a person. They stall, write three careful
sentences that sound like a LinkedIn bio, and you learn nothing you could not
have guessed.
- Everything below is a way around that. They are ordered by how much work the
- person has to do, and **you always start at the top**. Most of what you need is
- already on the machine and does not require them to do anything at all.
-
- Never present this list. Pick the next one and do it.
-
- ---
-
- ## Tier 0: they do nothing, you just look
+ Start with what the person wants help with today. Use context they have already
+ shared or authorized you to read. If a source is needed, name it and explain why;
+ existing access alone does not authorize a scan.
- Do this in the first session without asking. It costs them nothing and it is
- usually enough to stop sounding like a stranger.
+ ## First-session boundaries
- ```bash
- mac contacts find --json | head -50 # who is in their life
- mac calendar list --json --days 14 # what their weeks look like
- ls /Applications # what they use
- mac notes list --json 2>/dev/null # what they write down
- ```
+ Do not automatically read contacts, calendar, notes, messages, app inventories or
+ open windows to personalize a greeting. Ask one useful question instead. Never
+ infer identity from the computer account, or treat the kit author's preferences
+ as the new person's preferences.
- Read it, then say one true, specific thing back. "You have four things on
- Thursday and two of them overlap" is worth more than any question you could
- have asked.
+ If the person has authorized a source, inspect only the relevant portion and use
+ the result immediately. Read `skills/your-data/SKILL.md` before an import. Relevant
+ content passed to a hosted model can leave the machine even when its original
+ store is local. Do not promise otherwise.
- **Write what you learn to their second brain as you go.** Names that recur,
- what their week is shaped like, what they seem to be working on.
+ Record useful facts in their shared brain within the authorized scope. Distinguish
+ the person's words from your inference, and preserve their chosen language and
+ communication preferences. They can skip personal setup and use the tools alone.
---
## Tier 1: one sentence from them
When you need something you cannot see, ask about one concrete thing, never
about them in general.
Good: "Who is the person you text most that I should know about?"
Bad: "Tell me about the important people in your life."
Good: "What is the thing this week you keep not getting to?"
Bad: "What are your goals?"
One question, then use the answer immediately. Do not stack five.
---
## Tier 2: they hand you a folder
This is the highest value per unit of their effort, and the one to reach for
when they say Claude does not know enough about them.
`ingest` does the work: it unpacks a zip or walks a folder, throws away photos,
video, audio, binaries and anything oversized, converts PDFs and Word documents
to text where it can, and writes a MANIFEST.md of what survived.
```bash
ingest ~/Downloads/drive-export.zip
ingest ~/Documents/notes --out ~/context
ingest ~/Downloads/takeout.zip --max-mb 2
```
### Google Drive, said the way you should say it
Do not say "export your Drive". Give them the clicks:
> Open drive.google.com. Make a new folder called `for-claude`. Drag in the
> stuff that says something about your life: work docs, notes, plans, anything
> you have written. Skip photo and video folders, they are huge and I cannot
> read them anyway. Then right-click the folder and choose Download. Google
> zips it and it lands in your Downloads. Tell me when it is there.
Then run `ingest` on it, read the MANIFEST first, and read the files that look
like they carry the most about them. Summarize what you learned back in a few
sentences and ask if you got it right. Do not dump a file list at them.
### Other folders worth asking for, in order of value
| Ask for | Why it is worth more than it sounds |
| ----------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| Their Documents folder | Already on the machine, no export, no waiting |
| A Notion or Obsidian export | Their actual thinking, already in markdown |
| Google Takeout | Calendar history, contacts, and years of context |
| A resume or CV | Ten years of their life, structured, in one page |
| Their Downloads folder | What they are working on right now, unfiltered |
| Old application essays | How they actually write, which matters for tier 4 |
---
## Tier 3: they point at something already open
Cheaper than any export, and people forget it is possible.
- "What is on your screen right now?" then `peekaboo image`
- A link they paste: `summarize "<url>" --cli claude`
- A screenshot of anything: a schedule, a syllabus, a letter, a whiteboard
- A photo of a piece of paper, which is often faster than them typing it
---
## Tier 4: their voice, for writing as them
Only needed when they will ask you to write something that goes out under their
name. Collect three pieces of their own unedited writing: old essays, long
messages, anything written without an audience. Prefer middle drafts to final
ones, because a final draft has been sanded down by someone else.
Then follow `~/.claude/rules/writing.md`, which has the measurement protocol.
---
## What to do with any of it
Everything goes to their second brain, one fact per file, as you learn it. Not
in a batch at the end.
The test for whether something is worth keeping: **would a session next month
be worse without it?** A job, a person, a deadline, a preference, a constraint,
something that broke. Not a transcript of the conversation.
Say what you learned in a few sentences and let them correct it. Being wrong
out loud is how the file gets right.
---
## What never to do
- Never present these tiers as a menu. Pick one and do it.
- Never ask for a file you could read yourself. Look first.
- Never ask them to fill in a template. They will not, and if they do it will
be the LinkedIn version.
- Never read a folder and say nothing. If they went and exported something,
tell them what you now know that you did not know before.
- Never copy their files somewhere they did not agree to. `ingest` writes next
to the source and sends nothing anywhere.
- Never ask a second question before using the answer to the first.