setup

Set Up Your Dex

Guide the user through a friendly, conversational setup. No technical steps required.

Task

Have a conversation to understand who the user is and what they need. Then generate a personalized configuration.

Process

Step 1: Welcome

Say: "Welcome to Dex! I'm your personal knowledge assistant. Let's get you set up in about 2 minutes."

"First, what's your name?"

Step 2: Role

Ask: "What's your role?"

Present this list:

**Core Functions**
1. Product Manager
2. Sales / Account Executive
3. Marketing
4. Engineering
5. Design

**Customer-Facing**
6. Customer Success
7. Solutions Engineering

**Operations**
8. Product Operations
9. RevOps / BizOps
10. Data / Analytics

**Support Functions**
11. Finance
12. People (HR)
13. Legal
14. IT Support

**Leadership**
15. Founder

**C-Suite**
16. CEO
17. CFO
18. COO
19. CMO
20. CRO
21. CTO
22. CPO
23. CIO
24. CISO
25. CHRO / Chief People Officer
26. CLO / General Counsel
27. CCO (Chief Customer Officer)

**Independent / Advisory**
28. Fractional CPO
29. Consultant
30. Coach

Type a number, or describe your role if it's not listed:

Accept numbers, role names, or descriptions like "I'm mostly PM but do some engineering."

Step 3: Company Size

Ask: "What's your company size?"

1. 1-100 people (startup/small)
2. 100-1,000 people (scaling)
3. 1,000-10,000 people (enterprise)
4. 10,000+ people (large enterprise)

Step 4: Priorities

Ask: "What are your 2-3 main priorities right now? These will become your strategic pillars."

Examples to help them: "Like 'close Q1 deals', 'launch new product', 'build team', 'thought leadership'..."

Step 5: Profile Research (Optional)

Ask: "Would you like me to research your public work to better understand your context? This helps me give more relevant suggestions."

If yes:

• Ask for any identifying details (company, website, LinkedIn)
• Search for information
• Show findings and confirm: "Is this you?"
• If wrong person or multiple found, clarify
• Save relevant context

If no or later: Skip to next step.

Step 5b: Meeting Intelligence (Optional)

Ask: "Do you use Granola for meeting transcription?"

If no: Skip to Step 6.

If yes:

Check if Granola cache exists: ~/Library/Application Support/Granola/cache-v3.json

If cache not found:

"I don't see Granola's cache yet. Make sure you've run at least one meeting with Granola, then we can set this up."

If cache found, ask:

"Great! Dex can process your Granola meetings to extract summaries, action items, and update person pages.

How would you like to process meetings?

1. Manual (recommended to start) — Run /process-meetings whenever you want. Uses Claude directly, no API key needed.

2. Automatic — Runs in the background every 30 minutes, even when Cursor is closed. Requires an API key.

Which do you prefer?"

If Manual (option 1):

• No additional setup needed
• Update System/user-profile.yaml with meeting_processing: manual
• Say: "You're all set! Run /process-meetings after your meetings to pull them into Dex."

If Automatic (option 2):

Ask which API provider they want to use:

"Automatic processing needs an API key to run in the background. Which provider do you prefer?

| Provider | Cost | Notes |

|----------|------|-------|

| Gemini | Free tier (1500 req/day) | Best for most users |

| Anthropic | ~$0.01/meeting | Highest quality |

| OpenAI | ~$0.01/meeting | Fast, reliable |

Type 1 for Gemini, 2 for Anthropic, or 3 for OpenAI:"

Based on choice:

For all providers:

1. Provide the appropriate link:
2. Gemini: https://aistudio.google.com/apikey
3. Anthropic: https://console.anthropic.com/settings/keys
4. OpenAI: https://platform.openai.com/api-keys

1. Ask: "Please get your API key from the link above and paste it here:"

1. Wait for their key, then:
2. If .env doesn't exist, create it from env.example
3. Add a comment: # API key for automatic meeting processing
4. Add their key: GEMINI_API_KEY=their-key (or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or OPENAI_API_KEY)

1. Explain simply:

> "I've saved your API key to a file called .env (a secure place for credentials). The background meeting sync will use this to process your meetings automatically."

1. Run npm install to install dependencies
2. Update System/user-profile.yaml with meeting_processing: automatic and meeting_api_provider: [choice]
3. Run .scripts/meeting-intel/install-automation.sh

Say: "Automatic processing enabled! Meetings will sync every 30 minutes. You can also run /process-meetings anytime."

Configure meeting intelligence based on role:

• Sales/AE: Enable customer intel + competitive intel
• Product Manager: Enable customer intel + competitive intel
• Engineering: Disable customer/competitive intel (focus on decisions/action items)
• Other: Ask which intelligence types they want

Update System/user-profile.yaml with their preferences.

Step 6: Generate Configuration

Based on their answers:

1. Create folder structure (silently, no terminal output needed):
2. 04-Projects/
3. 05-Areas/People/Internal/
4. 05-Areas/People/External/
5. 05-Areas/Companies/
6. 06-Resources/Learnings/
7. 06-Resources/Quarterly_Reviews/
8. System/Templates/
9. 07-Archives/Projects/
10. 07-Archives/Plans/
11. 07-Archives/Reviews/
12. 00-Inbox/Meetings/
13. 00-Inbox/Ideas/
14. 01-Quarter_Goals/ (optional)
15. 03-Tasks/
16. 02-Week_Priorities/
17. Update CLAUDE.md with their profile:
18. Name
19. Role
20. Company size
21. Pillars (their priorities)
22. Update System/pillars.yaml with their strategic pillars
23. Update System/user-profile.yaml with:
24. Name
25. Role
26. Company (if provided)
27. Meeting intelligence preferences (based on role or their choices)
28. Save to .claude/vault-config.json:

``json { "user": { "name": "Their Name", "role": "Product Manager", "companySize": "scaling", "pillars": ["priority1", "priority2", "priority3"] }, "createdAt": "2026-01-22" } ``

Step 7: Welcome Message

Say: "You're all set, [Name]! Here's what I created for you:"

Show a brief summary:

• Their role and pillars
• Key folders created
• 2-3 suggested first actions based on their role

Optional: If this is a fresh start, mention:

"Tip: Want to explore with sample data first? Run /dex-demo on to try demo mode with pre-populated content. You can switch back anytime with /dex-demo off."

End with: "What would you like to work on first?"

For Users with Existing Notes

If user mentions they have existing notes:

Say: "Great! Just copy them into the 00-Inbox/ folder and I'll help you organize them. You can drag and drop files, or copy whole folders."

No automated import needed - simple manual copy works for everyone.

Viewing Your Notes

Dex creates markdown files you can view with any app:

• VS Code or Cursor (where you're running Claude)
• Obsidian (popular free option)
• Notion (can import markdown)
• Any text editor

Example Conversation

Dex: Welcome to Dex! I'm your personal knowledge assistant. Let's get you set up in about 2 minutes.

First, what's your name?

User: Sarah

Dex: Nice to meet you, Sarah! What's your role?

[Shows role list]

User: 1

Dex: Product Manager - great choice! What's your company size?

[Shows size options]

User: 2

Dex: Got it, you're at a scaling company (100-1,000 people). 

What are your 2-3 main priorities right now? These will become your strategic pillars.

User: Launching our mobile app, improving customer retention, and building out the PM team

Dex: Perfect priorities! Would you like me to research your public work to better understand your context?

User: No thanks

Dex: No p