Claude Cowork + Obsidian Will Change How You Work Forever

Every month, AI agents on cloud code, co-work, and codecs are getting better at reasoning, writing code, and navigating software. But for AI agents

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

context. So, in this video, I'll show you how I built a second brain in Obsidian that plugs into co-work, or any AI agent I use, giving them persistent context and memory around me and my

business. I'll cover the five big

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

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.

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 reexlain

conversations. You have to reexlain 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,

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? It's already

connected to my knowledge, Obsidian Vault, how they call it." And you can see Claude 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,

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 uh

this week. Use the LinkedIn instant uh skill." It will now go through our team

skill." 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 I'll put 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,

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.

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

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

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

system. You can see it now saved and updated this in my second brain as a role 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

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

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, I have a

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

below, too. But what changes with this second brain? Skills usually have

second brain? Skills usually have reference files and context inside the skill folder. For example, in this uh

skill folder. For example, in this uh 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

personality document. Now, we use these reference files in skills of course to get to 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.

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, etc.

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

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, uh, never use mashes 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. 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

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

it is. It's just a folder that I can now give Clot Codework access to. I can give Clot Code access to. I can give Codeex, Anti-gravity, or any other AI agent provider access to. For example, I can

go to the code tab or just use Cloud Code in the terminal. give it access to the same folder of my second brain the Ben iOS and I can ask the same question what should I focus on today

and as you can see clot 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 Codex access to the same folder as 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 to 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 onpoint tone of voice. In Obsidian, I can sync these

voice. In Obsidian, I can sync these updates in my context across the entire team here. And you can imagine that this

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 of a folder and its files on your computer.

As you can see here, all these folders that I'm seeing in Obsidian, contacts, 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

to. And all we really do is we point cloud co-work, cloud code or codeex 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

cloud-based software. It's all local. So

in coowwork for example, all I do is give it access to that folder. But if we have thousands of these context files, how does our AI agent on clockwork or clock 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 cloud. MD file. Now the

cloud.md file is basically just an instruction you give to your AI agent on cloud co-work or cloud code on how to navigate the second brain or the folder.

So if I ask coworker a question like what did we talk about in our team meeting yesterday? My AI agent first of

meeting yesterday? My AI agent first of all knows that it needs more context to answer this question. It then reads the cloud 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 Firefly transcript to answer the question back to the user.

So you can basically see that cloud.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

save data. So as you can see in this session with cloud co-work where we wrote the LinkedIn post, it has access to one file which is the instructions for the cloud 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.

So you can see how this system works, the file structure, knowledge routing, and this same clot.md file or the instructions you also see here in the Obsidian vault. Now, don't worry, I'll

Obsidian vault. Now, don't worry, I'll show you later in this video exactly how to get to this cloud MD and how to set up these instructions easily. Now, you

might be asking, how's this actually different from CL's built-in memory, and why would we actually need Obsidian if it's just a folder? Now, first of all, CL's built-in memory is very limited and is basically designed to remember the

most 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

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. Uh

you can set this up in a folder yourself, too. But honestly, it's just a

yourself, too. But honestly, it's just a nice way for you to visualize, organize, navigate, uh 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 uh 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 uh for example in the brand identity document you can see that we have the voice positioning where 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 uh 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 one 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. Uh everyone can see that these

in AI. Uh everyone can see that these L&Ms 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 uh repetitive tasks fast and

easily. But the missing layer for those

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. 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 these 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

itself. It's in the context that builds over time. Every decision that gets

over time. Every decision that gets logged, every correction or role 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

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 month 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

more powerful. So the context I think will be your actual mode 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

business? Now, the key thing to keep in mind when you get started is that you don't want to overoptimize. 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.

You just want to sort of start very simple and let the system evolve naturally. The same is the case for the

naturally. The same is the case for the file structure. It is important, but you

file structure. It is important, but you do want to start simple and let it evolve naturally. There is really no

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

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 soloreneur. Now, go

over the file structure quickly so you understand what's in each because it is important. But we've also built a

important. But we've also built a plug-in you can use in your AI agent on cloud co-work or 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. And 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.

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

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

your meetings. And this is probably the most important one because it gives your AI agent that continuity between conversations. Then third we have

conversations. Then third we have departments. Now this is if you run a

departments. Now this is if you run a business uh you will of course have different departments. For example in my

different departments. For example in my case community, content engineering partnerships operations etc. 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 uh things like meeting transcripts, decisions, uh competitor

research, market insights get stored over time. Then we have onboarding. Um

over time. Then we have onboarding. Um

here you can have SOPs around uh onboarding new team members or even clients. Then we have projects here. Now

clients. Then we have projects here. Now

projects will highly depend on uh your context. For me, projects can be for

context. For me, projects can be for example different YouTube videos I'm working on. So I can ideate and work on

working on. So I can ideate and work on scripting uh on one video between different chats. Uh if you run an

different chats. Uh 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

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

like this. Then we have the skill folder. Uh an important one uh where the

folder. Uh an important one uh where the reference material of your skills live.

for example, your strategy docs, your voice guides, your ICP descriptions, uh, basically additional information that your skills point to. So, you can see I have all my skills here, uh, 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, uh, you can also check out my AI accelerator in the link in the description. Then, lastly, we have here

description. Then, lastly, we have here tasks. And tasks can basically be uh,

tasks. And tasks can basically be uh, to-do lists. And then we have teams with

to-do lists. And then we have teams with more context uh, around each team member's role and responsibilities in your business. So your agent always has

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 clot.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

navigate it. And this will also appear in the co-work section in their folder instruction that I showed you before.

Now, if you're setting this up for yourself uh as a solopreneur or maybe as a professional, you can basically have the same uh structure but a little bit simpler. Uh so here I have an example of

simpler. Uh so here I have an example of the personal OS. It's basically the same file structure uh without the department, without the team section, and without the onboarding. So, same

file structure, just a bit simpler. Now,

again, might look overwhelming, but I started this a few weeks ago with just five files, and this sort of naturally grew, and a lot of this uh context has been created by my AI agent. And the

plug-in 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

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 Benai 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 cowork or cloth code or 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 code, 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

below. that can help you get to a basic generic setup a bit quicker. But as

said, we've built our own plug-in 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.

It helps you also populate uh your essential context a lot faster. And this

plug-in will work across cloud co-work or cloud code, wherever you want to use it. So, if that's interesting to you,

it. So, if that's interesting to you, you can check it out in my AI accelerator in the link in description below. We also have unlimited one-on-one

below. We also have unlimited one-on-one live tech help available if you want uh 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. Also, if you're a business and

it out. 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 uh with the marketplace of plugins and skills of my accelerator. And from there, if you do

accelerator. And from there, if you do it in co-work, you can just go to customize. Click here on the plus and

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 Benai skills. And

in there at the bottom, you'll find our plugin, Ben Obsidian plugin. You can

install that. And now you'll see that in your plugins, this one will appear. 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

faster. And all we do then is we point co-work to the same folder that we just set up in Obsidian. So in this case, Beni test. We click always allow. And

Beni test. We click always allow. And

now we uh use uh the plug-in and the scale setup.

Right? We run this and it will walk you through uh the setup 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 vault do I want a business setup or a solopreneur setup.

So in this case I'll do uh solopreneur just to show you as an example. So now

it's already created the initial folder structure and the cloud 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

folder structure. Now most of these are still empty of course because we haven't given cloud any context. So the next question is to really start giving it context. Right? And that's what this

context. Right? And that's what this plug-in does, right? It 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 setup 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 a couple of important things to keep in mind once you get to that initial data set is every new task you start in clock code you always want to point towards that same uh folder. Second,

when there are things that you want your AI or your second brain to remember, clearly tell cloud 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 role to. Thirdly, if

you see it have issues navigating the folder structure, tell it to update the cloud MD, which you can also do yourself because 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

here too. You can see I've already added some rules on how it should navigate the folder structure. And then lastly, if

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 skill here in Cloud Co-work or

in Cloud Code, save the reference files in your second brain and let the skill point towards the right folders. You can

also adapt your old skills by just telling claude. For example, here I

telling claude. For example, here I said, can you adapt my LinkedIn skill and create a new skill and gave it here specific instruction instead of having the reference files in the skill point towards the files in the Ben AIOS to get

the additional info instead of having them saved in the skill. 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 plug-in 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

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. If you want to learn more about cloth co-work uh skills, plugins, etc., You can also check out the video here above.