Detailed content
🧩 What /onboard does
O /onboard is a combined wizard: it reads and writes the aios-intake.md, conducts the 7-question interview and scaffolds the complete Day 1 file set at the end. It’s the first action you take after cloning the AIS-OS repository.
🎯 What the wizard delivers
- •Leads the 7 questions with a strict cap — each answer in under 60 seconds
- •Generates all Day 1 context files in a single run
- •Automatically backs up everything that existed before overwriting
- •Ends with the "wow moment" — your AIOS's first real response
✓ What to expect
- ✓A single ~35-minute session from zero to a living context
- ✓Direct questions, no beating around the bush — each with a clear purpose
- ✓Idempotent file set — can be run again without destroying what exists
✗ What it is NOT
- ✗It’s not .env configuration or API keys (that’s Day 2)
- ✗Doesn’t generate extra skills—only the base file set
- ✗No more than 7 questions—never goes deeper on the first run
💡 Practical Tip
Before running /onboard, open the voice files you want to paste into Q2. Emails, posts, transcripts—any text you wrote without thinking about "sounding good." The quality of the references/voice.md determines whether AIOS sounds like you or like a robot.
❓ The 7 questions (hard cap)
/onboard guides you through exactly 7 questions, each with a specific purpose across the 4 Cs. The cap is strict: no question 8 in the first run. Each answer should take less than 60 seconds — if it takes longer, you’re overthinking it.
Who you are / What you sell / Who it’s for
Feeds: context/about-me.md + about-business.md
Identity, core offering, ICP, and revenue model. Concrete facts, not a sales pitch.
Voice samples (the rule that doesn't bend)
Feeds: references/voice.md
Paste text you wrote naturally. Emails, posts, comments. Never typed in chat during the conversation.
Priorities for the next 90 days
Feeds: context/priorities.md
3 to 5 concrete objectives. "Launch product X," "reduce churn by Y%." The wow moment uses these directly.
Where the revenue comes in
Feeds: connections.md Finance line
Stripe, PagSeguro, spreadsheet, ERP — which system records payments. Defines the most critical Tier-1 Domain.
Where you talk with clients and the team
Feeds: connections.md Communication + Clients lines
WhatsApp, Slack, email, Discord — who talks where. Creates the initial Connections map.
Where meetings and docs live
Feeds: connections.md Calendar + Knowledge lines
Google Calendar, Notion, Obsidian, Confluence — where knowledge is recorded and time is organized.
The task that eats up the week
Feeds: context/priorities.md + /level-up seed
The boring, manual, repetitive thing you do most. It doesn’t need to be “automatable” — just be honest. It’s the first /level-up candidate.
⏱️ 60-second cap
If an answer is taking more than 60 seconds, you’re overthinking it. /onboard wants the facts off the top of your head—not the perfect pitch. You can edit aios-intake.md after and rerun.
🎤 The Voice Rule (Q2)
Q2 is the only rule that doesn’t bend under any circumstances. Voice samples need to be pasted verbatim from texts you wrote before this conversation. Never typed during the /onboard session.
⚠️ Why this matters
When you type during a conversation with Claude, the text is already being shaped by the conversation’s context — the model’s tone, the questions you just answered, and the expected format. The result isn’t your voice: it’s your voice filtered through the model.
"If you type here while we’re talking, the sample is already shaped by the conversation." /onboard has an instruction to refuse samples clearly typed in the moment.
✓ Valid sources for Q2
- ✓Emails you wrote to clients (without editing them to sound "better")
- ✓Social media posts from the last 6 months
- ✓WhatsApp or Slack messages for the team
- ✓Comments on documents or personal notes
✗ Invalid sources for Q2
- ✗Text written now, during the /onboard session
- ✗Text reviewed by AI before pasting
- ✗"A summary of my writing style" that you just put together
- ✗Website or LinkedIn bio copy polished by an agency
💡 How much to paste
2 to 4 samples from different contexts (email, post, informal message) are enough. Volume isn't quality — the model needs to see context variation, not repetition of the same entry.
📁 Day 1 Scaffold
At the end of the 7 questions, /onboard scaffolds the complete file set. It’s not an empty template — each file already contains the processed interview answers, ready for immediate use in a new Claude session.
🗂️ What each file does
- about-me.md: Who you are, what your role is, and your main pain point. Interpreted — not a résumé.
- about-business.md: What the business does, who the ideal customer is, and how revenue comes in. Facts, not a pitch.
- priorities.md: The 3–5 objectives for the next 90 days, plus the task that takes up your week (seed for /level-up).
- voice.md: The verbatim Q2 samples. The model reads these before producing any outward-facing output.
- connections.md: Table filled in with the 7 Tier-1 domains and what you use. Empty where you don't have a tool yet.
💡 Automatic backup
/onboard backs up any existing file in archives/intake-{timestamp}/ before overwriting. You never lose what was there before—you can compare versions or revert.
✨ The "wow moment"
The closing prompt in /onboard is designed to plant the Default Shift immediately. After generating the files, the wizard instructs you to ask your newly configured AIOS your first real question.
← instruction to the user after the scaffold
"Now open a new Claude session and ask:
'What should I focus on this week?'
The response must use only present 3 bullets in your voice, each tied to a priority in priorities.md, using the context files we just created."
🧠 Why this is the wow moment
The response uses only the files you just created — no conversation context, no session memory. This is AIOS responding from scratch, based on what you wrote about yourself.
When the bullets sound like you and align with what you defined as a priority, the Default Shift happens: you stop thinking of AI as a search tool and start treating it as an operating system.
- •If the response is generic → voice.md needs more verbatim samples
- •If the response is off topic → priorities.md needs more concrete goals
- •If the response is perfect → you’ve just configured a functional AIOS
A good answer looks like...
"This week, the focus is finishing client X’s onboarding, since that represents the most revenue at risk before the end of the quarter..." (in your tone, with real context)
A bad answer looks like...
"To succeed this week, you should focus on high-impact tasks and manage your time efficiently..." (generic — refresh voice.md)
🔄 Idempotency + rerun
/onboard is idempotent: running it again doesn't destroy what's there. Edit the aios-intake.md with the answers you want to update and run it again — the wizard updates only the affected files.
Edit aios-intake.md
Open the file, find the answer you want to update, and edit it directly. The original answers stay commented out for reference.
Run /onboard again
The wizard detects an existing aios-intake.md, skips questions that have already been answered, and focuses only on the ones that have changed.
Automatic backup before overwriting
Before updating any file, /onboard creates a new backup in archives/intake-{timestamp}/. You can always revert.
📊 When to rerun
- •Priorities changed: new quarter, new goal, business pivot
- •Unsatisfactory voice: AIOS doesn’t sound like you — more Q2 samples
- •New connected systems: update Q4/Q5/Q6 to reflect them in connections.md
- •Onboarding someone else: clone it and run /onboard in her new project
💡 Quarterly review
The CLAUDE.md recommends a quarterly review. Use /onboard as the official update mechanism—don’t edit context files directly on an ad hoc basis. Keeping aios-intake.md as the source of truth prevents discrepancies between files.
🚫 What /onboard Does NOT Do
Knowing what /onboard does is just as important as knowing what it doesn’t do. These limitations are intentional—they aren’t bugs or gaps to fix.
✗ Intentional limitations
- ✗No more than 7 questions: depth comes with time, not on Day 1
- ✗Doesn’t configure .env: API keys and credentials come on Day 2
- ✗Doesn’t generate extra skills: only the base file set — skills come from /level-up
- ✗Doesn’t write to 3ms-framework.md: framework documentation is read-only
✓ What comes next
- ✓Day 2: configure the connections — MCPs, scripts, API keys
- ✓Day 7: run /audit to see the 4 Cs score
- ✓Every Friday: /level-up — one automation per week
- ✓With each new use: edit aios-intake.md and rerun it to keep it up to date
🗺️ Recommended kit cadence
💡 The Day 1 philosophy
/onboard was designed so that no question is blocking. If you don’t know the answer to Q4 right now, enter “Stripe — not integrated yet” and keep going. An AIOS with 80% correct context today is worth more than one with 100% in two weeks.
🚀 Module Summary
Next Module:
3.2 — /audit: Four-Cs Diagnosis · "Watch the score rise" · The honest score that shows where AIOS is strong and where it's thin.