Your personal AI operations assistant, built for the Claude Desktop app.
Gary reads your email, calendar, Slack, and meeting transcripts — then synthesizes them into daily briefings, action items, and on-demand research. Named after Gary Walsh from Veep — the aide who knows what you need before you ask.
| When | What | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Every morning | Daily Briefing | Email triage, calendar with prep notes, Slack mentions, GitHub status, proactive alerts, quality score |
| Before meetings | Meeting Prep | Last discussion, what's changed, fires to watch, your action items |
| All day | On-Demand Chat | Open Cowork in the gary-ai folder and ask anything — status checks, research, draft replies, decision-ready docs |
| Every evening | EOD Digest | What got done, carry-forward tasks, tomorrow's first meeting |
| Every night | Transcript Sync | Compiles meeting transcripts into a team operational status doc with change detection |
| Every night | Knowledge Compile | Synthesizes vault data into a queryable knowledge base — entities, people, situations, concepts |
| Friday | Weekly Retro | Goals vs. actuals, task scorecard, patterns to adjust |
| On demand | Topic Research | Say "research [topic] — [why]" and get a multi-source synthesis (web, Reddit, Hacker News) written to your knowledge base |
| Sunday | Week Ahead | Calendar overview, key meetings, prioritized tasks |
| Sunday | Research Refresh | Automatically refreshes research topics that are 30+ days old, archives stale topics at 90 days |
Gary runs in the Claude Desktop app. Open a Cowork chat in the gary-ai folder and you're talking to Gary. It connects to your data sources via built-in MCP connectors — no API keys to manage, no custom code to write.
You ──→ Claude Desktop (Cowork chat in the gary-ai folder)
├── Gmail (MCP connector)
├── Google Calendar (MCP connector)
├── Slack (MCP connector)
├── GitHub CLI (optional)
├── Exa Web Search (optional — powers topic research)
└── Vault folder (local markdown files)
├── Daily notes (briefings + EOD digests)
├── Transcripts (meeting notes you drop here)
├── Project docs (research, status docs)
└── Knowledge base (entities, people, situations, research)
Scheduled tasks run the briefing/digest/weekly prompts automatically. Your machine needs to stay awake for these to fire on time — a Mac Mini or desktop is the best setup, but laptops work too (Gary catches up when you open the lid). See System Requirements for per-machine setup.
The vault is just markdown — point Obsidian at it for mobile sync, or just read the files.
~20 minutes to set up. No coding required. No terminal.
Follow the walkthrough in SETUP.md:
- Download the Claude Desktop app — that's the only install
- Connect your data sources (Gmail, Calendar, Slack) in Settings
- Open this project folder in the app and start a chat — Gary walks you through onboarding: 4 quick questions, auto-detects your connections, sets up all scheduled tasks, and runs your first briefing live
- Claude Desktop app (macOS or Windows)
- Claude account with a Pro or Team plan
- Gmail / Google Calendar account
- Slack workspace (optional but recommended)
- GitHub account (optional)
- Exa web search MCP connector (optional — enables topic research)
- A machine that stays awake — desktop is ideal, laptop works with the right settings (see System Requirements)
Most AI assistant setups are demos. Gary is a working pattern extracted from a production personal assistant that's been running daily since March 2026. The prompts, error handling, and data synthesis patterns have been iterated through real use.
The key insight: scheduled tasks build context, and context makes on-demand work powerful. Your morning briefing isn't just a summary — it's the foundation that lets you say "research the situation with [vendor]" and get a decision-ready doc in 10 minutes, because Gary already knows what's been discussed in Slack, what meetings happened, and what action items are open.
The knowledge base takes this further — nightly compilation synthesizes your transcripts, notes, and project docs into structured entries (entities, people, situations, concepts) that Gary queries directly. No RAG pipeline, no vector DB. Just Claude-maintained markdown with cross-references. Inspired by Karpathy's approach to LLM-native knowledge management.
| Component | Role |
|---|---|
| Claude Desktop | Runtime — Cowork chat interface with MCP connectors |
| MCP Connectors | Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack integration |
| Markdown Vault | Local knowledge base (daily notes, transcripts, project docs) |
| Scheduled Tasks | Automated briefings, digests, and weekly reports |
| Prompt Engineering | Structured prompts with shared modules and error handling |
| Knowledge Base | LLM-compiled entities, people, situations, and concepts from vault data |
gary-ai/
├── prompts/ # Scheduled task prompts (briefing, digest, retro, prep)
│ └── shared/ # Shared prompt modules (error handling, formatting)
├── config/ # Configuration files
├── docs/ # Design docs and screenshots
├── vault/ # Your knowledge base (gitignored — personal data)
│ ├── daily/ # Archived daily + weekly notes
│ ├── transcripts/ # Meeting transcripts
│ ├── projects/ # Project docs and research
│ └── knowledge/ # LLM-compiled knowledge base (entities, people, situations, concepts, research)
├── state/ # Runtime state (gitignored)
├── SETUP.md # Step-by-step setup guide
├── SOUL.md # Gary's personality (customize this)
└── IDENTITY.md # Gary's name and vibe (customize this)