brain-setup

A guided first-time setup for a Local Brain workspace, where you can organize work tasks, side projects, and personal goals. It asks what you are working on and turns that information into projects and tasks.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when setting up Local Brain, starting for the first time, or organizing your current projects and tasks.
Why use it?
It removes the blank-page problem after installing an empty workspace. It also helps sort loose notes into existing or new projects.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/sandermoon/local-brain/brain-setup
Any agent
npx skills add SanderMoon/local-brain --skill brain-setup
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/SanderMoon/local-brain

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 49 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 900 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00049 $0.00900
Opus 5 $0.00024 $0.00450
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00180
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00090

Measured 2d ago against content hash e1831415891d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

brain-setup scanned grade B with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Strips warnings and disclaimersmediumAnti-refusal

Omitting safety caveats hides risk from the user and is a common jailbreak preamble.

Briefly explain what Local Brain does in one or two sentences. Do not lecture. Then ask:
pkg/skillscatalog/skills/brain-setup/SKILL.md · 98 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 98 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

brain-setup: First-Time Setup Wizard

Guide the user through setting up their Local Brain workspace conversationally. This should feel like talking to a new executive assistant on their first day — curious, helpful, and efficient.

Trigger Phrases

  • "Set up my brain", "Get started", "I'm new here"
  • "Help me organize my projects"
  • "I just installed brain"
  • First interaction when the brain is empty

Pre-flight Check

Call get_brain_overview to assess the current state:

  • If no brain exists or brain is completely empty (no projects, no dump items): run the full setup
  • If projects already exist: offer to add more projects or refine existing ones — do not re-run full setup
  • If only dump items exist: offer to organize them into projects as part of setup

Workflow

Step 1 — Welcome and Context

Briefly explain what Local Brain does in one or two sentences. Do not lecture. Then ask:

"What are you working on right now? Tell me about your projects — they can be work tasks, side projects, personal goals, anything."

Let the user talk naturally. Extract project names, descriptions, and any mentioned tasks or deadlines from their response.

Step 2 — Create Projects

For each project identified:

  1. Suggest a short, kebab-case name (e.g., "website-redesign", "q1-planning")
  2. Confirm the name and description with the user
  3. Call create_project for each

Do not create more than 3-5 projects in the first pass. If the user mentions more, note them and say: "Let's start with these — you can always add more later."

Step 3 — Populate Initial Tasks

For each project, ask:

"What needs to happen next for [project]? Any deadlines?"

Convert responses into concrete tasks with:

  • Clear, actionable descriptions (imperative form: "Ship v2", not "v2 shipping")
  • Due dates when mentioned ("by Friday" → the actual date)
  • Priority 1 for anything the user emphasizes as urgent or important

Call create_todo_in_project in batches per project.

Step 4 — Handle "I Don't Know"

Read the full file on GitHub · 98 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 98 lines · 49 tokens per session scan B e1831415891d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

brain-setup is a skill published in the GitHub repository SanderMoon/local-brain (9 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 49 tokens to every session and 900 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (strips warnings and disclaimers). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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