Claude Cowork + Obsidian Will Change How You Work Forever

0:00 Every month, AI agents on CloudCode, Co-work, and Code acts are getting better at reasoning, writing code, and navigating software. But for AI agents to actually become our main interface for work and doing work autonomously, there's still one missing layer, context. So in this video, I'll show you how I built a second brain in Obsidian that plugs into Co-work, CloudCode, or any AI agent I use, giving them persistent context and memory around me and my business. I'll cover the five big advantages of this setup and show you why this might have huge implications for how we work and how businesses are run. And I'll show you how it actually works and an easy way for you to set it up and get started with this today. Now before showing you how this works, how to set it up, and why I recommend starting with this today, let me quickly go over the five big advantages with some examples of having a second brain.

0:46 Now the first one is the most obvious one and it's persistent context. Right now, most people use AI in isolated conversations. You have to re-explain everything in each chat about your situation, your project, your workflows, etc. And with a second brain, your AI agent has persistent access to all of this context. And not just a few facts, but detailed context around everything. You can see in my Obsidian, I have context saved around everything. My business, my strategy, my projects, my brand, my workflows, my team, uh about myself, my meetings, literally everything. And here in this graph view, we can see the relationships between all of these documents. For example, my AI accelerator here and here's me. Now I'll show you later how this actually works and how to set this up, but because of this, I can now open a new chat session with, for example, Cloud Co-work and ask something like, "What should I focus on today?"

1:34 It's already connected to my knowledge, uh Obsidian vault, how they call it. And you can see Cloud now pulls my context to give me an answer. And because it pulled this context, it now knows that my main priority should be landing page copy changes, recording the Obsidian video, and organizing the Spain offsite in April. I could even ask it things like, "Write me a LinkedIn post based on AI topics we discussed in our team meetings this week, use the LinkedIn instant skill.

2:00 It will now go through our team meetings, see what AI topics we discussed, and use a LinkedIn skill to actually write it in my tone of voice. Then pulls the context from my second brain, uses the skill, and then output a LinkedIn post according to the topic we discussed, which is of course this second brain topic. This week, my team and I built something different. We created a second brain for our entire business. Now, this is just an example, but you can see the power of this. And with the new scheduled task feature, this becomes even more powerful.

2:26 Secondly, besides co-work now always being able to pull up-to-date and complete context around me and my business in any chat, it can also directly update the context in my second brain. So, any decision, any rule, any project update I make in an AI chat, it can log it directly back into my second brain. For example, if I see something in this LinkedIn skill that I don't like, for example, never use um m dashes when writing content for me, I can say something like, "Remember this in my second brain or in my AI operating system." You can see it now saved and updated this in my second brain as a rule in the writing preferences. Now, this is huge because it means the more you and your team use AI to do tasks, the more context is built, the more guidelines it has, and the better your AI becomes for yourself and your entire team. Thirdly, there's also a big advantage of having this second brain when building and using skills. Now, if you don't know what skills are yet, skills are basically saved instructions for your AI agent on Cloud Code or Cloud Co-work on how to do a specific process or task. For example, in this LinkedIn skill, it goes through the step-by-step process of how to write a LinkedIn post in my style, and essentially allows these agents to automate workflows just like I showed you in the example. Now, the full video covering skills, if you're still unfamiliar with it, which I'll make sure to link in the description below, too. But what changes with this second brain? Skills usually have reference files and context inside the skill folder. For example, in this LinkedIn skill, I have a pen profile background document, a hook template document, an ICP document, a LinkedIn example document, and a voice personality document. Now, we use these reference files in skills, of course, to get the better outputs, but it usually takes a long time to provide all the context every new skill needs to get to a good output. And if you have all of the relevant context around your ICP, your tone of voice, your business already in your second brain, it means you can build good skills far faster.

4:13 This means you only need to lay out the process and point it to the right context in your second brain, and you don't have to give it the exact same context over and over again for each new skill you're building. For example, I have dozens of skills that share reference files around my ICP, their pain points, what my business does, et cetera. As you can see, my newsletter writer skill shares a lot of the same context files as my LinkedIn one. So, the new way I'm building out my skills with this second brain setup is not by adding this extra context or reference files in the skill itself, but by just pointing my skill to the right context in my second brain. For example, this is my new LinkedIn skill, the LinkedIn Instant, and in this case, you can see that I only have the skill MD, only the process instructions, and there I direct it to where I can find the specific context files in my second brain. And this means that any update I make to a reference file in my second brain, for example, in the ICP document, all of the skills that use this ICP document are instantly updated instead of me manually updating dozens of skills myself. It also means that this rule, for example, that I added, "Never use M dashes when writing content for me," is now updated as a rule in my writing preferences, which is one of the documents many of my content writing skills point towards.

5:25 So, my newsletter skill is automatically updated with this same rule. Now, another huge advantage of this setup, of course, is that it works across any AI you use. So, your second brain in Obsidian is really just a folder of markdown files, which I'll explain in more detail in a second, but that's all it is. It's just a folder that I can now give Cloud Co-work access to, I can give Cloud Code access to, I can give Code X, Integra BT, or any other AI agent provider access to. For example, I can go to the code tab or just use Claude Code in the terminal, give it access to the same folder of my second brain, the Ben AI OS, and I can ask the same question, "What should I focus on today?"

6:02 And as you can see, Claude Code has access to the same context. As you can see, landing page copy, Obsidian video, and Spain offsite. And this even works across different AI providers. Here I gave Code X access to the same folder, asked it the same question. As you can see, landing page copy, YouTube production, and Spain offsite. And then lastly, which is huge if you're a business, is that this is not only for yourself, but can actually scale across your entire team and business. Me and my team now share this same second brain with my business strategy, ICP understanding, uh tone of voice references, company goals, etc. So, instantly my entire team's AI agents have access to this context that make them far more powerful and productive for my business. For example, my entire team will always have access to up-to-date strategy documents, ICP documents that their agents can instantly use. And with the context and skills that I've built, I can now let an engineer write my LinkedIn post with an on-point tone of voice. In Obsidian, I can sync these updates in my context across the entire team here. And you can imagine that this setup could completely change the way you run a business, which I'll get to later in this video. But let me first explain how this actually works, because it might look a little bit overwhelming and complicated, but it really is not. So, what is Obsidian? All Obsidian really is is just a visual overlay over a folder and its files on your computer.

7:15 As you can see here, all these folders that I'm seeing in Obsidian, context, daily, departments, intelligence, onboarding, I also have available here in the folder that Obsidian is connected to. And all we really do is we point Claude Co-work, Claude Code, or Code X, or any other AI agent we use to the same folder on your computer, so they can directly read and write to the same files you see in Obsidian. And that's why Obsidian is a great app to do this on, because we don't have to sync anything, use an API or an MCP or a cloud-based software, it's all local. So, in Co-work, for example, all I do is give it access to that folder.

7:47 But if we have thousands of these context files, how does our AI agent on Claude Co-work or Claude Code actually know what context to use? And how does it update it? Now, again, this is pretty simple. The way it updates and retrieves the right data from your Obsidian folder or vault is through the Claude bot MD file. Now, the Claude MD file is basically just an instruction you give to your AI agent on Claude Co-work or Claude Code on how to navigate the second brain or the folder. So, if I ask Co-work a question like, "What did we talk about in our team meeting yesterday?" my AI agent, first of all, knows that it needs more context to answer this question. It then reads the Claude MD file to understand where in my Obsidian vault or folder it will find more information around this. Then it reads those specific documents, like for example, yesterday's Fireflies transcript, to answer the question back to the user. You can basically see that Claude MD file as sort of like a system prompt or an instruction layer that tells your AI agent how the vault or your folder is structured and where to retrieve and save data. So, as you can see in this session with Claude Co-work where we wrote the LinkedIn post, it has access to one file, which is the instructions or the Claude MD, and this is basically just instructions for the AI agent on where to find specific information in the second brain and where to save it. You can see how the system works, the file structure, knowledge routing, and this same Claude MD file or the instructions you also see here in the Obsidian vault. Now, don't worry, I'll show you later in this video exactly how to get to this Claude MD and how to set up these instructions easily.

9:16 Now, you might be asking, "How's this actually different from Claude's built-in memory, and why would we actually need Obsidian if it's just a folder?" Now, first of all, Claude's built-in memory is very limited and is basically designed to remember the most of essential facts about you. It's generally stored in one document, so the difference really is the scope of the context. My Obsidian vault, as you can see, has thousands of pieces of context. And secondly, if Obsidian is just a folder, why would we need Obsidian? The short answer is you don't need it. You can set this up in a folder yourself, too, but honestly, it's just a nice way for you to visualize, organize, navigate, search, and link your notes and files together. My context and knowledge sources over the last weeks have been growing really fast, and honestly, without Obsidian, I wouldn't be able to organize it the way that I have right now. Through the graph view, we can also see the relationships between all of these context files. It automatically makes these connections between different documents or context files. For example, in the brand identity document, you can see that we have the voice positioning, where it links to the ICP for our ideal customer profile and the pain points of our customer. This is also what your AI agent is able to navigate. So, for example, if it reads the brand guidelines and feels like it needs more context around my ICP, you can see this link or wiki link, what they call it, and actually look up this document to find more information. And the nice thing about Obsidian is I can really easily sync the updated context across my team if you're going to use this in a team setting. It's also entirely free to use and download, so I just recommend using it. Now, before showing you how to set it up, let me zoom out for 1 second because I think this setup has much bigger implications than just some extra productivity. I think it could entirely change the way people work and businesses are run. So, there are multiple of these big developments coming together right now in AI.

10:56 Everyone can see that these LLMs are becoming better at reasoning, MCPs are getting better and now allow them to efficiently navigate softwares and the internet, and skills, plugins, schedule tasks, etc. now allow you to automate repetitive tasks fast and easily. But the missing layer for those AI agents was really context. And with a setup like this, I think it will slowly allow people and businesses to start adopting an AI interface like Cloud Co-work or Cloud Code as the main interface to do their work instead of hopping between 15 different softwares all the time. But maybe more importantly, I think this is the development that will slowly allow AI agents to start doing work autonomously without our involvement.

11:35 Personally, for example, since I've really started using Co-work on a daily basis, I've been less and less in my Gmail inbox, I've been less on Google doing research, I'm barely in my CRM anymore, and now with this combination of MCPs, connectors, and scheduled skills, I can now automate end-to-end processes like email follow-ups without my involvement. And that's why I really believe you need to start building this today because the value of this setup isn't in the setup itself, it's in the context that builds over time. Every decision that gets logged, every correction or rule that gets saved, every project that gets documented, and every skill that gets made, it all compounds. So, the AI agent you and your entire team have after 6 months of using this is far more powerful than the one you start with on day one. And if your competitor, for example, starts 6 months after you, they're not just behind on the tool, they're behind on 6 months of intelligence that makes the tool actually perform far better for you. And even when better models come out and they will, the same context just becomes more powerful. So, the context, I think, will be your actual moat in the upcoming months and years. So, how do you actually set this up for yourself or your business? Now, the key thing to keep in mind when you get started is that you don't want to over-optimize. It might look very overwhelming what I just showed you in my own setup, but this setup I started with just probably five files a few weeks ago. This context will grow very naturally the more you use AI.

12:54 You just want to sort of start very simple and let the system evolve naturally. The same is the case for the file structure. It is important, but you do want to start simple and let it evolve naturally. There is really no perfect file structure because it's going to be highly context-dependent. It will depend on your context, your business, your goals, and your projects. Um now, that being said, there are two file structures that I recommend and I've seen work well as a starting file structure. One for if you're running a business uh and you want to use this across your team, and one if you uh want to use this for yourself as a professional or as a solopreneur. Now, go over the file structure quickly so you understand what's in each because it is important, but we've also built a plugin you can use in your AI agent on Cloud Co-worker Cloud Code to help you set up and get to these starting structures fast, which I'll show you in a second how to use. A second what you want to keep in mind when I'm going through this is that many of these files are and can be created by your AI agent.

13:46 So, don't get overwhelmed. You'll get there naturally. So, I'll cover the file structure that I use for my business setup and then I'll show you quickly the personal setup, which is basically the same but with less files. So, first we have the context folder and this is where you store general context around who you are, your business, your strategy, your team, your brand, and it's basically everything your AI agent needs to understand about you and your situation always. For example, in context I have information about my team, strategy, stakeholders, pain points, organization, operator, the ICP, and the brand. Second, we have daily and this is basically where your AI agent logs everything that happened each day across your sessions, maybe across your meetings, and this is probably the most important one because it gives your AI agent that continuity between conversations. Then third, we have departments. Now, this is if you run a business, you will of course have different departments. For example, in my case, community, content, engineering, partnerships, operations, et cetera. And then in the community folder, for example, we can have SOPs around work that needs to be done in my community, for example here, YouTube to community repurposing. The fourth one is intelligence and this is a bit like the first one, context, but much more detailed. And this is the place where things like meeting transcripts, decisions, competitor research, marketing sites get stored over time.

15:02 Then we have onboarding. Here you can have SOPs around onboarding new team members or even clients. Then we have projects here. Now, projects will highly depend on your context. For me, projects can be, for example, different YouTube videos I'm working on so I can ideate and work on scripting on one video between different chats. If you run an agency, this can be a project for each client you're managing, but this will be highly context-dependent. Then fifth, we have resources, and resources is basically anything reusable. So, you can imagine it like a library of prompts, templates, frameworks, maybe content output examples, good examples, things like this. Then we have the skill folder, an important one, where the reference material of your skills live. For example, your strategy job docs, your voice guides, your ICP descriptions, basically additional information that your skills point to.

15:52 So, you can see I have all my skills here with the reference files laid out. By the way, if you want access to all of the skills that me and my team are building out and using, you can also check out my AI accelerator in the link in the description. Then lastly, we have here tasks, and tasks can basically be a to-do lists, and then we have teams with more context around each team member's role and responsibilities in your business, so your agent always has context around anyone in your team. And that's really it. And then at the root here, you have the cloud.md file, the brain file, which is the instruction layer that tells your AI agent how this whole file system here works and how to navigate it. And this will also appear in the co-work section in the folder instruction that I showed you before.

16:31 Now, if you're setting this up for yourself as a solopreneur or maybe as a professional, you can basically have the same structure but a little bit simpler. So, here I have an example of the personal OS. It's basically the same file structure without the department, without the team section, and without the onboarding. So, same file structure, just a bit simpler. Again, might look overwhelming, but I started this a few weeks ago with just files, and this sort of naturally grew, and a lot of this context has been created by my AI agent.

16:58 And the plugin we built is going to make this process a lot easier and faster to do. So, how do we set it up? You can just go to Obsidian and download Obsidian for free. Once you've done that, you'll land on a screen like this. So, you can just go here to create new vault. For example, I call it Benny AI test. And then I have to choose a folder. So, I just create a new folder, and this is the folder that you're going to point Co-worker, Cloud Coder, any AI agent you use towards to access that same vault that Obsidian visualizes for you. So, we open this one and click create. So, we now have an empty folder. Now, if you're going to set this up in Cloud Coder, you can also use Obsidian CLI, which I'll make sure to put in the description below, that can help you get to a basic generic setup a bit quicker. But, as I said, we've built our own plugin, which is available in my AI Accelerator together with all our other plugins and skills to get you to that file structure that I showed you before a lot quicker.

17:49 It helps you also populate your essential context a lot faster, and this plugin will work across Cloud Coder, Cloud Coder, wherever you want to use it. So, if that's interesting to you, you can check it out in my AI Accelerator in the link in the description below. We also have unlimited one-on-one live tech help available if you want some help setting up these things. We also do AI workshops where we dive a lot deeper into these setups and tools. So, if that's interesting, definitely check it out.

18:12 Also, if you're a business and you want me and my team to help you in a more personalized way to set up a business AI OS for your company, we're now opening a few limited spots to help businesses set this up. So, if you want more information, you can also check the link in the description below. In there, you can find a link with the marketplace of plugins and skills of my accelerator. And from there, if you do it in Co-worker, you can just go to customize, click here on the plus, and you click add marketplace, and you add the link that you find in accelerator. Once you've done that and you go to browse plugins, you'll find a tab here at personal that says Binyan AI skills, and in there at the bottom, you'll find our plugin, Binyan Obsidian plugin. You can install that, and now you'll see that in your plugins, this one will appear.

18:55 And there we have the skills that help you get to that setup in Obsidian a lot faster. And all we do then is we point Co-worker to the same folder that we just set up in Obsidian. So, in this case, Binyan test. We click always allow, and now we use the plugin and the skill setup. Right, we run this and it will walk you through the set up on getting to this file structure a lot faster and I'll start asking you some question to get the essential context set up. So, first it asked me what kind of file do I want?

19:23 A business set up or a solopreneur set up? So, in this case I'll do solopreneur just to show you as an example. So, now it's already created the initial folder structure and the Claude MD with the instructions on how to navigate this type of folder structure. As you can see now in Obsidian, we already have this folder structure. Now, most of these are still empty of course because we haven't given Claude any context. So, the next question is to really start giving it context, right? And that's what this plugin does, right? It's going to ask you some questions to populate your initial context data set. Now, want to spend probably half an hour to an hour here to get your your initial set up, have the initial context data set and from there it will naturally expand and I can tell you if you start using AI more and more, in a couple of weeks you'll have a very expanded data set of context that really makes your AI far more powerful. So, couple of important things to keep in mind once you get to that initial data set is every new task you start in Claude Code, Claude Co-work, you always want to point towards that same folder. Second, when there are things that you want your AI or your second brain to remember, clearly tell Claude Co-work to remember this in your second brain or whatever you call your folder. If you can, ideally even point it to the specific file it has to save that rule to.

20:31 Thirdly, if you see it have issues navigating the folder structure, tell it to update the Claude MD, which you can also do yourself because it remember this is the bridge to point it to the right direction. So, I can add in rules all the way at the end here, too. You can see I've already added some rules on how it should navigate the folder structure. And then lastly, if you're going to build skills, I highly recommend to take a new approach now and instead of embedding reference files into the scale here in Claude Co-worker in Claude Code, save the reference files in your second brain and let the scale point towards the right folders. You can also adapt your old skills by just telling Claude. For example, here I said, "Can you adapt my LinkedIn skill and create a new skill?" And gave it here a specific instruction. Instead of having the reference files in the skill, point towards the files in the Ben AI OS to get the additional info instead of having them saved in the skill.

21:22 And again, the earlier you start with this, the more powerful your AI agent is going to get over the long term. So, highly recommend to start soon with this. Now, that's it for this video. Again, if you want access to all of the plugins, skills that me and my team are building out, plus unlimited one-on-one live tech help and AI workshops where we dive a lot deeper into these tools, you can check out my AI accelerator in the first link in the description. And if you're a business that wants a little bit more personalized help in setting this up for your business, you can check the second link in the description below. Thank you so much for watching.

21:48 If you want to learn more about Claude co-work, skills, plugins, etc., you can also check out the video here above.