name: setup description: Set up your personal knowledge system with a simple conversation
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?
Manual (recommended to start) — Run
/process-meetingswhenever you want. Uses Claude directly, no API key needed.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.yamlwithmeeting_processing: manual - Say: "You're all set! Run
/process-meetingsafter 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:
-
Provide the appropriate link:
- Gemini: https://aistudio.google.com/apikey
- Anthropic: https://console.anthropic.com/settings/keys
- OpenAI: https://platform.openai.com/api-keys
-
Ask: "Please get your API key from the link above and paste it here:"
-
Wait for their key, then:
- If
.envdoesn't exist, create it fromenv.example - Add a comment:
# API key for automatic meeting processing - Add their key:
GEMINI_API_KEY=their-key(orANTHROPIC_API_KEYorOPENAI_API_KEY)
- If
-
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." -
Run
npm installto install dependencies -
Update
System/user-profile.yamlwithmeeting_processing: automaticandmeeting_api_provider: [choice] -
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:
- Create folder structure (silently, no terminal output needed):
04-Projects/05-Areas/People/Internal/05-Areas/People/External/05-Areas/Companies/06-Resources/Learnings/06-Resources/Quarterly_Reviews/System/Templates/07-Archives/Projects/07-Archives/Plans/07-Archives/Reviews/00-Inbox/Meetings/00-Inbox/Ideas/01-Quarter_Goals/(optional)03-Tasks/02-Week_Priorities/
- Update CLAUDE.md with their profile:
- Name
- Role
- Company size
- Pillars (their priorities)
- Update
System/pillars.yamlwith their strategic pillars - Update
System/user-profile.yamlwith:- Name
- Role
- Company (if provided)
- Meeting intelligence preferences (based on role or their choices)
- Save to
.claude/vault-config.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 onto 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