Automation in the brain has three layers and they build on each other. The first layer is tools: one-shot prompts you paste into your AI chat that get a specific job done (summarise this transcript, extract action items from this thread, draft a thank-you email). The second layer is skills: small markdown files that capture a tool you use often, so you can call it by name instead of pasting the prompt every time. The third layer is triggers: things that run a skill on a schedule or in response to an event (every Friday at 5pm, when a new file lands in a folder, when you are tagged in Slack). The right way to climb this ladder is one rung at a time. Use tools for a week, notice which ones you reach for repeatedly, turn those into skills. Run skills for a month, notice which ones you would happily delegate to a schedule, turn those into triggers. The brain has a built-in Meta Skills addon that helps you write skills by reading your chat history and proposing the ones worth saving. You can install it from your dashboard. The most common mistake people make at this stage is jumping straight to triggers. They imagine a fully automated Friday-evening review email and try to wire it on day one. That is the wrong order. The first automation should be small, recoverable, and low stakes. A weekly summary that lands in a markdown file. A reminder to file an expense. A nightly digest of your brain edits. You build the trust in the system before you build the ambition.
Steps
Notice the prompts you reach for repeatedly
Spend a week using your AI chat with the brain connected. Every time you find yourself typing a similar prompt twice (summarise this thread, draft a reply in my voice, extract decisions from this transcript), write the prompt down somewhere. The list at the end of the week is your candidate skills.
Turn one prompt into a skill
Pick the simplest prompt from your list and save it as a skill. A skill is just a markdown file under the skills/ folder of your brain. It has a title, a description of when to use it, and the prompt itself. The next time you want that pattern, you tell your chat the skill name instead of pasting the prompt. The Meta Skills addon (from your dashboard) can write this file for you based on the chat history.
Test the skill in normal conversations
Use the skill for a week. Notice what works, what does not, where the output needs a tweak. Skills are markdown, so editing them is the same act as editing any note in Obsidian. Open the file, change a line, save. The next conversation uses the new version. There is no deploy step.
Wrap a stable skill in a trigger
Once a skill has earned your trust, you can wrap it in a trigger so it runs on a schedule. The simplest trigger is a cron: every Friday at 5pm, run this skill and write the output to a file. The dashboard has a triggers panel where you set the schedule. You do not write code. You pick the skill, pick the schedule, and the LAN runtime takes care of the rest.
Inspect the runs in Obsidian
Triggered runs write their output back into the brain as markdown notes. Once a week, open Obsidian, navigate to the folder where the runs land, and read the most recent ones. This is how you stay in the loop without having to babysit the automation. If a run misfires, you see it. If a run keeps producing useful output, you know the automation is paying for itself.
Install the Meta Skills addon when you are ready
The Meta Skills addon watches the patterns in your chats and proposes new skills based on what you reach for. It is optional but useful once you have used the brain for a few weeks. From your dashboard, click install, accept the permissions, and the addon starts surfacing suggestions you can accept or ignore.
Resources
Troubleshooting
- A skill behaves differently than the prompt did.
- Open the skill file in Obsidian and read it. Skills sometimes lose nuance when saved as a file. Add the missing context back into the body of the skill and save.
- A trigger fired but produced nothing useful.
- Open the run output, see what the skill saw. Usually the trigger was missing an input the skill needed. Adjust the trigger config in the dashboard.
- I have too many skills and cannot remember them.
- Open Obsidian, navigate to the skills folder, scroll through. If you have not used a skill in three months, archive it. A short list of trusted skills beats a long list of forgotten ones.
- I am scared a trigger will spam something.
- Start with triggers that only write to your brain folder, not to external services. Once you trust the trigger output, graduate to ones that send emails or post messages.