| name | brain-setup |
| description | Bootstrap the Open Project Brain Standard into the current project — ensure BRAIN.md is in the project root, resolve the brain data location with `brain brain-dir` (brainRoot-aware), scaffold the brain/ skeleton there only if it is empty (never a second local ./brain when redirected), idempotently wire CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md, and optionally install a pre-commit hook. |
brain-setup
This skill bootstraps a project into the Open Project Brain Standard: it drops in the protocol entry point and the brain/ skeleton so the brain-page and brain-ingest skills (and the brain CLI) have something to work with. It is idempotent — safe to run again on an already-initialized project.
NEVER hand-edit any file under the brain directory. All reads and writes MUST go through the brain CLI. Manual edits are unsupported and illegitimate. This scaffold creates the brain once; from then on every read and write is a brain subcommand. There is no validator and nothing at the file layer can catch a bad manual edit, so a hand edit silently breaks the brain's invariants.
Run this from the target project's root. The skill bundle ships the templates under assets/ and the hook under hooks/; resolve <this-skill-bundle> to the directory this SKILL.md lives in.
Core invariant: there is exactly one brain, at the resolved location. The brain's data directory is location-independent — it lives at ./brain by default, but a MindMux-managed project redirects it via brainRoot in ./.mindmux/preferences.json (often an absolute path to an external sidecar directory). This skill MUST resolve that location before scaffolding, and MUST NOT create a second, local ./brain when a brainRoot is set — doing so produces a split brain (an empty local skeleton shadowing the real external brain). The BRAIN.md protocol document is separate: it always lives in the project root regardless of where the brain data lives.
Steps
1. Ensure BRAIN.md (the protocol document) is in the project root
BRAIN.md is the read/write contract that the agent reads to learn how to use the brain. It always belongs in the project root, independent of where the brain data lives.
- Present → leave it untouched (never overwrite project content).
- Absent → copy
assets/BRAIN.md → ./BRAIN.md.
Do not stop here just because BRAIN.md exists — its presence says nothing about whether the brain data is set up. Always continue to step 2 to resolve and check the data location.
2. Resolve the brain data location, then scaffold there only if empty
First, resolve where the brain data actually lives — never assume ./brain. Ask the CLI:
node <brain-page-bundle>/bin/brain.mjs brain-dir
(The brain-page skill carries the CLI; in the brain.md source repo it is skills/brain-page/bin/brain.mjs, globally it is e.g. ~/.claude/skills/brain-page/bin/brain.mjs.)
brain brain-dir reads brainRoot from ./.mindmux/preferences.json when present (otherwise falls back to ./brain) and prints, on separate lines: the resolved directory, a human-readable origin, source: (brainRoot or default), exists: (true/false), and populated: (true/false — whether the location already holds a root page or any page under pages/). Read those lines instead of guessing or stat-ing by hand.
Branch on the resolved state:
-
populated: true → the brain already exists. Do NOT scaffold. Tell the user the brain lives at <resolved dir>. If source: brainRoot, make it explicit: "this project's brain is redirected to an external directory (<resolved dir>) and is managed there — leaving it untouched." Then continue to step 3 (wire) and step 4 (optional hook). Never lay down a local ./brain in this case.
-
populated: false → scaffold the skeleton into the resolved directory (the brainRoot target when redirected, otherwise ./brain). Copy assets/brain/ → <resolved dir>/ — this brings the six root page templates (background / architecture / flow / mindmap / stack / roadmap), a generated index.md, and an empty pages/ directory. Copy each destination file only if it does not already exist (never overwrite). Never create a second local ./brain when source: brainRoot — always scaffold at the resolved path. After copying, run reindex so the index reflects the present pages:
node <brain-page-bundle>/bin/brain.mjs reindex
(reindex resolves the same location, so it writes the index in the right place automatically.)
No example pages are scaffolded; the page format is documented in BRAIN.md and the brain-page skill.
3. Wire the agent-config files via brain wire
The project's agent-config files must point at BRAIN.md so agents pick up the contract. Wiring is deterministic — done by the CLI, not by hand. Do not hand-write @import lines or template paragraphs.
First, ask the user which agents to wire for this project (v0.1 supports claude-code, codex, opencode, cursor, and pi). Then, for each chosen agent, run:
node <brain-page-bundle>/bin/brain.mjs wire --agent <claude-code|codex|opencode|cursor|pi>
You may pass --agent multiple times or comma-separate them, e.g. wire --agent claude-code,codex,opencode,cursor,pi.
What the command does (so you can explain it):
- Maps
claude-code → ./CLAUDE.md and codex / opencode / cursor / pi → ./AGENTS.md in the project root.
- Writes one unified, neutral, self-contained brain block — wrapped in
<!-- BEGIN brain.md --> … <!-- END brain.md --> — that names the Open Project Brain Standard, instructs the agent to read ./BRAIN.md (the full read/write contract), states the core rule (all brain reads/writes go through the brain CLI; never hand-edit a brain file), and notes that the four brain skills are installed globally.
- Both files get the same block body; the only difference is that
CLAUDE.md additionally carries an @import ./BRAIN.md line (Claude Code-specific syntax — the other agents don't understand @import, so AGENTS.md relies on the plain "read ./BRAIN.md" instruction).
- It is idempotent via the markers: absent file → created; existing file without the markers → block appended; existing marked block → replaced in place (so re-running upgrades the block instead of duplicating it).
4. Optionally install a pre-commit hook
Offer to install the local index + link backstop (no CI required). Only if the project is a git repository (.git/ exists) and the user agrees:
- Copy
hooks/pre-commit → .git/hooks/pre-commit and make it executable (chmod +x).
- If a
.git/hooks/pre-commit already exists, do not overwrite it — tell the user and show them the hook contents so they can merge it manually.
The hook runs reindex → lint-links on every commit and folds any index changes back in. (There is deliberately no validator — correctness is guaranteed by the CLI being the only way to write.)
After setup
The scaffold leaves the brain empty — six root page templates plus an empty pages/. The valuable next step is to seed it with real project knowledge, and that is exactly what the brain-bootstrap skill does:
Recommend the user run the brain-bootstrap skill next. On an existing (brownfield) project it reads the code, docs, and git log to draft the six root pages and capture the key historical decisions; on a near-empty (greenfield) project it interviews the user to seed background and friends. brain-setup does not run it automatically — initialization and knowledge-seeding are separate steps, so the user stays in control of what gets written.
Also point them at: read BRAIN.md, then use the brain-page skill to author or modify pages directly and the brain-ingest skill to digest scattered input into the brain. Every read and write goes through the brain CLI — never hand-edit a brain file.
