Your AI Operating System: the complete guide

The big idea in one minute

Most people use AI like a clever assistant they have to re-brief every single time. Your AI Operating System is different: it is a whole AI business, set up once to know your business, your voice, and your rules, then organised into departments that each do one part of the job well.

Think of it like hiring a team:

• A Foundation that holds who you are, how you sound, and what the AI is and is not allowed to do. Every department reads this first, so everything sounds like you and follows your rules.
• A set of departments, one for each part of running a business (Marketing, Sales, Client Delivery, Admin, Finance, Strategy, Scaling, and one for real life at home).
• A CEO layer over the top that can take a whole goal ("launch my course"), work out which departments handle which parts, and coordinate them, always checking with you before anything goes out.

You do not need all of it at once. You start with the Foundation and one department, and add more when you are ready.

The one rule that never changes: anything that gets sent, published, or spends money is drafted for you and waits for your yes. The AI prepares; you decide. Always.

What is included

The Foundation (start here, everyone)

The shared brain and the safety rails. It includes:

• Your business context (business-context.md): the one file you personalise. Who you serve, what you offer, your voice, your rules. Every skill reads it.
• The voice guide and the checks: brand-voice, brand-check, voice-check, citation-check, and responsible-ai-review. These make sure everything sounds like you, cites real sources, and is safe and fair before it goes out.
• The cockpit (os-activity-review): a plain report of what your AI actually did this week, what is waiting on you, and roughly how much time it saved. Built from your own records, on your own computer.
• Self-improvement (os-self-improvement): on a regular rhythm, it reviews what worked and what you kept editing, then suggests improvements to your skills, for you to approve.
• Setup helpers: notion-brain-setup (connect your OS to Notion) and slack-teams-setup (make it work for a team).

The departments

Each department behaves like a brilliant, ethical head of that function. Each is a set of skills that read your Foundation and do one job well.

New departments arrive on their month. If you subscribe (see below), they simply appear.

The optional accelerators (no lock-in, ever)

Your OS runs on plain files with any capable AI. On top of that, if you want to move faster:

• The Notion brain: nine ready-made databases (your business brain, content calendar, a simple CRM, clients, decision and activity logs, an asset library, an SOP library, and contracts and renewals) that you duplicate in one click. Your OS then reads and writes to them, so everything lives in one place you and your team can see.
• Slack or Teams setup: makes the OS post briefs and drafts into your team's channels, where a named person approves before anything ships.
• Your own tools: connect your own email, calendar, CRM, design and scheduling tools. You always use your own accounts; we never store your data or passwords.

The tune-up tools (the Optimise set)

• Skills Health Check: audits your skill files for quality and safety.
• Tool Stack Audit: looks at all your software and finds what to cut, streamline, or let AI replace.
• Hub Gap-Finder & Sync: compares what you have to the latest Hub versions and safely updates you.

How it all fits together

        YOU  (set the direction, approve what ships)
         |
     CEO OS   (takes a goal, delegates, coordinates, checks with you)
         |
   ┌─────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┐
   Departments: Marketing · Sales · Client Delivery ·
   Strategy · Finance & Legal · Admin & Ops ·
   Scaling & Exiting · Home
   ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   FOUNDATION  (your context, your voice, the checks, the logs)
   ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   ACCELERATORS  (Notion brain · Slack/Teams · your own tools)

Read it top to bottom: you set the direction, the CEO layer can coordinate the departments, every department stands on the shared Foundation, and the accelerators make it faster to run without ever locking you in. You can use any single department on its own; the layers above are there when you want them.

How to use it (step by step)

First: set up your AI-HQ (step zero)

Before anything else, give your OS one home. Everything lives in a single folder on your computer called AI-HQ: your Foundation sits at the base of it, and each department is a folder on top.

Put it near the top of your drive. On Windows that is C:\AI-HQ. On Mac it is ~/AI-HQ, your home folder.

Not in a cloud-synced folder. Not OneDrive, not SharePoint, not Google Drive, and on Mac not Desktop or Documents either, because iCloud usually syncs both without asking you. Synced folders hand your AI a placeholder instead of the real file, and long paths break some tools outright. A short path near the top of your drive avoids both.

Open the Set up your AI-HQ tool in the Hub, answer a few quick questions about your situation (a business, just your role, several businesses, or clients you build for), and it gives you the exact folder structure and copy-paste commands. Do this once.

Then you connect your AI to that folder. Which tool you use changes how that works, and the next section walks you through it click by click.

Then you have two ways to get the skills. Both use the same content; pick whichever suits you.

Connecting your AI to your folder

You will see the phrase "point your AI at your folder" a lot. Here is what it actually means: you are telling your AI tool which folder on your computer it is allowed to read and write in. You do it once. After that it just knows.

How you do it depends entirely on which tool you use, so find yours below and ignore the rest.

First, check you can actually do this

Only some tools can reach into a folder on your computer. Before you start:

Read the README in this folder and walk me
through connecting my tools, step by step.

One file, two names

Inside your folder there is a manager file that loads your skills and applies your rules. Claude looks for CLAUDE.md. Other platforms look for AGENT.md. Same file, same job, two names. If your download has one and your tool wants the other, copy it and rename it. Nothing else changes.

Option A: Subscribe (recommended, stays up to date)

This is best if you use the Claude desktop app (Cowork) or Claude Code. You add our library once, and every improvement we make arrives automatically.

In the Claude or Cowork desktop app (most members):

1. Open Settings → Plugins.
2. Top right, click Add → Add marketplace. In the URL box paste Ai-HerWay/os, keep Sync automatically on, and click Add. You only ever do this once.
3. Click Browse to open the directory, then click the + next to each department to install it. Start with Foundation, then add the ones you run (for example, the + next to Sales OS).
4. With Sync automatically on, updates arrive on their own.

In Claude Code (terminal):

1. Add the marketplace once:

   /plugin marketplace add Ai-HerWay/os

2. Install the parts you want. Start with the Foundation, then add departments:

   /plugin install foundation@aiherway
   /plugin install marketing-os@aiherway
   /plugin install sales-os@aiherway
   /plugin install admin-ops-os@aiherway
   /plugin install home-os@aiherway
   /plugin install optimise@aiherway

3. Pull updates any time with /plugin marketplace update aiherway.

Option B: Download the files

Prefer plain files, or use a different AI tool? Every department is also a download from the Hub. Save the files where your AI can read them. You update by re-downloading, or by running the Hub Gap-Finder tool, which updates you without wiping your own edits.

Then: make it yours

The skills are generic on purpose; they become yours by reading your context.

1. Go to the OS Builder at ai-os-builder.vercel.app.
2. Answer the interview about your business, your audience, your voice, and your rules.
3. It generates your personalised Foundation (your brain file, voice, governance, and memory files).
4. Save those into your AI workspace. Now every skill you use behaves like you.

Subscribing gives you the skills; the OS Builder gives you the personalised setup. They work together.

Using a skill day to day

Once the Foundation is in place, you just ask. For example:

• "Draft this week's newsletter" (Marketing)
• "Qualify this lead and draft a reply" (Sales)
• "What did my OS do this week?" (the cockpit)
• "Set up my Notion brain" (the Notion accelerator)

The skill does the work to a high standard, in your voice, and stops for your approval on anything that goes out.

The safety promise (EquiAI)

Every skill lives by the same rules, so you can trust the whole system:

• You are always in control. Anything that sends, publishes, or spends is drafted and waits for your yes. Nothing goes out on its own.
• Nothing is made up. No invented statistics, testimonials, or fake urgency. If something cannot be verified, the AI says so.
• Your data stays yours. Everything runs in your own AI workspace with your own accounts. We store nothing.
• It is honest about being AI. Where it matters, it discloses that AI helped, in proportion to the work.

The traffic-light system, in plain terms: green means the AI can do it and just log it (internal, reversible things). Amber means it drafts and waits for you (anything reaching another person). Red means it stops and you decide together (money, contracts, anything irreversible).

A note on teams

The OS works brilliantly for one person, and it scales to a team when you are ready. Connect the Notion brain so everyone sees the same information, connect Slack or Teams so the OS posts drafts and approvals where your team works, and the CEO layer can coordinate across both people and AI departments. Every skill works solo first and gains team behaviour when the team tools are connected.

Coming from an earlier version

If you downloaded skills from us before, welcome back. Here is exactly what to do.

What changed

• The skills are now organised into clear departments with a shared Foundation, instead of a loose folder of files.
• There is a subscribe option now, so you stop having to re-download when we improve things.
• Everything follows one consistent standard (voice, safety checks, logging), and several skills have been sharpened with better evidence and clearer rules.
• New capabilities exist that earlier versions did not have: the cockpit, self-improvement, the Notion brain, and the departments rolling out through the year.

If you want the simplest path: switch to subscribing

1. Add the marketplace once. Desktop app: Settings → Plugins → Add → Add marketplace, paste Ai-HerWay/os, keep Sync automatically on, click Add. Claude Code: /plugin marketplace add Ai-HerWay/os.
2. Install the packs you use. Desktop app: click Browse, then the + next to each department (start with Foundation). Claude Code: /plugin install foundation@aiherway, then your departments.
3. From now on you get every update automatically. You can delete your old downloaded copies once you have confirmed the new ones work (keep a backup folder until you are comfortable).

If you prefer to keep using downloads: sync safely

Use the Hub Gap-Finder & Sync tool (in the Optimise set). It:

1. Reads the skills you already have.
2. Compares them to the current Hub versions.
3. Shows you, before changing anything: what is up to date, what has a newer version, what is missing, and what is your own custom work.
4. Updates and adds only what you approve, one file at a time, and keeps your customisations (your business details, your voice edits). It never blindly overwrites your work, and it backs up before any change.

Important: your edits are safe

If you personalised any earlier skill (added your business, changed the voice, set your own rules), the sync is a careful merge, not a replacement. It preserves what you changed. If anything cannot be merged cleanly, it stops and shows you both versions rather than guessing.

Re-personalise once, cleanly

The best time to move to the new Foundation is now: run the OS Builder interview once, and it regenerates your personalised brain, voice, and rules in the new structure. Then your whole OS, old skills and new, reads from one clean, current Foundation.

If you get stuck

Post in the Hub community first, that is where answers live and others learn from your question. If it is urgent or a tech issue, email hello@aiherway.com.au. If a skill is misbehaving, run the Skills Health Check from the Optimise set; it usually finds the cause.

Quick reference

• Connect your AI to your folder: step by step for each tool
• Add the marketplace once: desktop app Settings → Plugins → Add → Add marketplace, paste Ai-HerWay/os; or Claude Code /plugin marketplace add Ai-HerWay/os
• Install a department: desktop app, click the + next to it in Browse; or Claude Code /plugin install <name>@aiherway (e.g. foundation, marketing-os, sales-os, admin-ops-os, home-os, optimise)
• Update everything: /plugin marketplace update aiherway
• Personalise your setup: ai-os-builder.vercel.app
• Tools, downloads, and modules: os.aiherway.com.au
• See what your OS did: ask for your "activity review" or "cockpit"
• Keep downloads current: run the Hub Gap-Finder & Sync tool
• Help: Hub community first, then hello@aiherway.com.au

You do not have to master all of it. Start with the Foundation and one department, use it for a week, and add the next piece when it would genuinely help. That is how an operating system is meant to grow: with you.