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The Folder System Became My Agency
Twenty-four days ago I posted about Jake's folder system video. This is what happened next. Same foundation — markdown files, orchestration prompts, clear roles. I just kept building. Fifteen named specialists. Each one with a soul file, guardrails, and a playbook. Duke orchestrates. Cash writes. Trace pulls the data. Hank runs the financials. Clint handles the MCP integrations. Behind each one is either a human counterpart doing the real work alongside them — or a role I can't afford to hire yet. Katie who's been with me for 18 years, now has her own orchestrator running the same system. Twenty-seven client folders. Twelve live MCP integrations. One shared repo. The folder system isn't replacing my agency. It becoming my agency. Jake gave me the unlock. This is how it's going.
The Folder System Became My Agency
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Welcome to Clief Notes. Here's where to start.
1. Watch the intro video and introduce yourself in the intro post here 2. Start with The Foundation (free course). Concepts, folder architecture, prompting framework. Everything else builds on this. 3. Check in at the bottom of each lesson. Polls, discussion posts, other members working through the same stuff. Use them. 4. When you're ready to build real things, move to Implementation Playbooks (Level 2). When you're ready to build your own tools, Building Your Stack (Level 3). 5. Post your work. Ask questions. Help others when you can. What are you here to build?
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🏆 WEEKLY COMP #7: THE OPERATOR 🏆
🎟️ PRIZE: FREE SEAT IN THE LYCEUM 🎟️ Pick your cohort. Technical, Business, or Creator. Your call. ---- 🇬🇧 We're back. Good morning from London. 👋 Thanks for the patience last week. Jake and I needed a few days to breathe before London Tech Week kicked off, and you all responded with nothing but support. We don't take that for granted. Now let's get back to building. ---- 📋 THE CHALLENGE Build a folder-based AI operator that handles ONE operational workflow end-to-end. You pick the workflow. This week's deliverable is one operator folder that someone could drop into a Claude project and use to handle a real business workflow without babysitting. ---- 🎯 PICK YOUR WORKFLOW The workflow is yours. Pick something specific. Pick something you'd actually use. A few sparks to get you thinking: - 🎫 Customer support triage (which tier handles this ticket?) - ✅ Content review and approval - 📨 Lead intake and qualification - 💸 Refund request handler - 🤝 Partnership pitch evaluator - 🎙️ Podcast guest pitch sorter - 💼 Freelance project intake - 📄 Resume screen for one specific role - 📅 Meeting request triage (book, decline, delegate) The more specific, the better. "Customer support" is too broad. "Refund request triage for an ecommerce store doing under 200 orders per month" is right. 📎 If you want a fully written client brief as a reference, the attached PDF walks through one example. Don't build the example. Use it as a template for how to think about scoping your own operator. ---- 🗂️ THE METHODOLOGY If this is your first comp, welcome. Here's what you need to know: This week (and every week) you're learning interpretable context methodology. Folders as architecture. Each file does one job well. Your operator is a folder with five things: - 📄 identity.md (who the operator is and what workflow they own) - 📐 rules.md (the decision logic: criteria, edge cases, escalation rules) - 💬 examples.md (decisions in action, including at least one edge case) - 📚 reference/ (checklists, templates, rubrics) - 📖 README.md (how to use it)
Chinese models US hosted & Private
There is a method of using Chinese models like: Qwen, MiniMax, Zai, Moonshot, etc. That are hosted in the US on the latest NVIDIA B300 datacenter GPUs, where your data stays private and is never trained on. This is where Ollama, the self hosted go to source for local models comes in. Ollama offers a selection of cloud based models. Simply append your model call with :cloud https://ollama.com/search?c=cloud&o=newest What's your favorite model?
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Dave & Jake's Picks
We've been hoarding links like digital pack rats -- and it's time to crack the vault open. Jake and I put together a running list of the tools, resources, and random goldmines we keep coming back to. The stuff that actually stuck after the hype wore off. If it survived our workflows, it earned a spot here. https://www.skool.com/cliefnotes/classroom/c7f102c7?md=e97c96e116694175974ba3baa726b4b6 ------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT THIS IS Think of it as a curated toolbox -- not a "Top 100 AI Tools" listicle from some SEO farm. These are things we've actually used, broken, duct-taped back together, and kept reaching for. Some are well-known, some are buried gems we stumbled on at 2am while chasing a rabbit hole. WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU This page is alive. It's not a monument -- it's a workbench. - Drop a comment if something on here saved you hours (or cost you hours -- we want to know that too) - Suggest additions -- what's in YOUR toolchest that we're sleeping on? - Call us out -- if something's outdated, broken, or just not as good as the alternative you found, tell us - Share your use case -- same tool hits different in different hands. How are you actually using these? We'll keep updating this as the collective stack evolves. Your feedback shapes what stays, what goes, and what gets added next. ------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: You know the drill -- this is garage tinkering, not production gospel. Your mileage may vary. Duct-tape what works and break what doesn't. Let's keep building brains that can't be taken away from us.
Dave & Jake's Picks
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Jake Van Clief, giving you the Cliff notes on the new AI age.
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