A second brain · built in markdown 27 skills · 4 subsystems
A design engineer's operating system

Second brain.

A folder that thinks with me.

Memory, persona, and hands. 27 skills, four subsystems, one markdown brain.

Arnesh Mandal · the assistant system
What it is

Three layers.

Memory Markdown files. Everything it knows, written down.
Persona One voice, one taste. How it speaks and what it values.
Hands 27 skills and MCP tools. What it can actually do.
No app. No database. A folder you can read top to bottom. 02 / 13
Under the hood

The stack, by job.

Capture & ingest
yt-dlpWhisperXgallery-dlffmpeg
Media generation
fal.ai
Media processing
FFmpegImageMagickexiftool
Video
Remotion 4React 19TypeScript
Documents
PandocTectonicdocxpptx
Decks
HTML / CSS / JSPlaywrightForgejo CI
Design
Figma MCPOKLCH
Parametric CAD
build123dPythonOpenCascadethree.jsOrcaSlicer
Photos
osxphotosSQLiteexiftool
Memory & sync
MarkdowngitiCloud Drive
Hosting
ForgejoCaddyAuthelia
Nothing exotic — standard tools, wired together and documented 03 / 13
The shape

Everything is a file.

assistant/
├── CLAUDE.md       router · persona · workflow
├── ideas.md        captured ideas
├── resources.md    links · tools · assets
├── docs/           design system — tokens · voice · surfaces
├── assets/         fonts · icons · monogram · textures
├── .claude/skills/ 27 skills
├── inbox-remote/   iCloud capture inbox
├── trade-ops/      code-cad/  ·  slides/  ·  renderer/
└── projects/       per-project notes
Open any file and you know where you are. The structure is the documentation. 04 / 13
Why it scales

Each room carries its own map.

Root CLAUDE.md points; it never duplicates.
Every subsystem has its own CLAUDE.md — its contracts, its rules.
Working in slides/, it loads slide rules — not trade-ops, not code-cad.
CLAUDE.md                 router
├── slides/CLAUDE.md      deck contracts
├── renderer/CLAUDE.md    video stack
├── trade-ops/CLAUDE.md   trading rules
└── code-cad/CLAUDE.md    parametric CAD
Context stays local — the model only loads the room it's standing in 05 / 13
The substrate

Files all the way down.

Memory is markdown. Ideas, resources, notes, tokens, voice, history — plain text, all in git.
Assets are a library. Fonts, icons, the monogram, textures — referenced from one place, never re-downloaded.
Interfaces are local. When the work needs eyes, a locally-hosted web page.
Slides preview:8765
Remotion Studio:4242
CAD viewer:4178
Why it holds up Git is the memory, diffs are the history. The interface is any editor — or a local page.
Plain text · versioned · portable 06 / 13
What it can do

27 skills. Six clusters.

Each cluster is a door. Click to open it.

Six clusters · twenty-seven skills · one inbox 07 / 13
Capture & ingest
Cluster 01 · 4 skills

Anything in becomes a note.

video-ingestIG / YouTube → transcript + on-screen text
carousel-ingestIG carousel → every slide read
project-indexerkeeps the project map current
hooksiOS · git commit · session end / compact
→
Inbox inbox-remote iCloud Drive
→
Router capture-smart reads on session open
→
Filed ideas.md resources.md projects/<slug>.md

Session end and compact are summarized by a background Haiku agent before they land in the inbox.

Stackyt-dlpWhisperXgallery-dlffmpegClaude vision
Three feeders, one router, the right file 08 / 13
Media
Cluster 02 · 7 skills

Generate, render, process.

AI generation
fal-imagegenerate, edit, upscale stills.
fal-videotext or image to video.
CLI media tools
gif-makera clip to an optimized GIF.
media-processingconvert, resize, composite.
Programmatic
remotionvideo + images from React code.
Photo library
osxphotosthe macOS library — phone · iCloud · Mac.
Orchestrator social-post a brief → carousel, captions, video — draws on all of the above.
Stackfal.aiFFmpegImageMagickRemotion 4React 19
AI, CLI, and code — one media toolchain 09 / 13
Docs & decks
Cluster 03 · 8 skills

Markdown, out to anything.

To a surface
slide-deckstatic HTML decks. (this one)
marksetmarkdown to PDF.
docxWord documents.
pptxPowerPoint decks.
xlsxExcel and CSV.
Think & write
humanizestrip the AI tells from prose.
councilsix advisors stress-test a decision.
distilla long talk into one doc.
git push→ Forgejo Actions→ rsync · Caddy→ slides.nesh.studio

This deck shipped through that pipeline — you're reading the output.

StackPandocTectonicPlaywrightForgejo CI
One source, many surfaces 10 / 13
Design
Cluster 04 · 2 skills

One source, every surface.

DOCS/ · THE DESIGN SYSTEM design.md voice.md tokens.css color · figma-use — the tools that shape it Decks Social posts Videos PDFs Figma One source of truth — every surface obeys it.
The design system is shared, not redrawn 11 / 13
Systems
Cluster 05 · 2 systems

Systems that hold a domain.

code-cad Natural language to parametric 3D — Python out to STEP, printable mesh, and robot descriptions, with an interactive viewer. Ships its own 10 CAD skills · outputs real hardware. live
build123dPythonOpenCascadethree.jsOrcaSlicerBambu Lab
trade-ops An autonomous trading system, in planning. Paper and simulation before any money. Guardrails first. Risk limits and AI guardrails locked before any capital. planning

Each is its own folder with its own CLAUDE.md — its own rules, sealed off from the rest.

Domain systems, isolated by design 12 / 13
Coding
Cluster 06 · 6 skills

Clean, tested, shipped.

Write coding-standards clean as written
→
Simplify code-simplifier tighten what's there
→
Review code-review catch the bugs
→
Test testing verify & debug
Builds the UIfrontend-designproduction-grade web interfaces.
Extends the kitskill-creatorauthors new skills.
StackTypeScriptReactVitestpytest
Standards, review, and tests — code quality as a habit 13 / 13