Essential rules for operating in the ~/brain workspace. This is the primary guidance for all agents.
~/brain is not a single project. Each repo under git/ has its own .git, dependencies, and workflows.git/personal/<project>/ or git/work/<project>/, that project's .cursorrules/AGENTS.md/README.md takes precedence.git/personal/agent-instructions/ and must be git committed when modified.brain/
├── git/
│ ├── personal/ # Personal GitHub identity
│ │ ├── agent-instructions/ # THIS REPO - skills, tools, guidance
│ │ │ └── .cursor/skills/ # Canonical skill definitions
│ │ └── ...
│ └── work/ # Work GitHub identity
│ └── ...
├── obsidian/ # Obsidian knowledge vaults
│ ├── Timatron/ # Main vault (daily notes, GTD, journals)
│ └── ...
├── .cursorrules # Thin pointer → this file
├── CLAUDE.md # Thin pointer → this file
├── .cursor/skills/ # Symlink → agent-instructions/.cursor/skills/
└── .claude/skills/ # Symlink → agent-instructions/.cursor/skills/
Skills are defined canonically in git/personal/agent-instructions/.cursor/skills/. But Cursor and Claude Code discover skills from the workspace root, not from nested repos:
<workspace>/.cursor/skills/<workspace>/.claude/skills/Since ~/brain is the workspace root, the setup script (setup.sh) creates symlinks so both tools find the skills automatically:
~/brain/.cursor/skills → ~/brain/git/personal/agent-instructions/.cursor/skills
~/brain/.claude/skills → ~/brain/git/personal/agent-instructions/.cursor/skills
Both symlinks point to the same source — skills are authored once and discovered by both tools. If the symlinks break (e.g., after a fresh clone), re-run:
cd ~/brain/git/personal/agent-instructions
./setup.sh
git/personal/ — Personal GitHub identity (via SSH host alias git@personal-github:...)git/work/ — Work GitHub identity (standard [email protected]:...; work key in ~/.ssh/config for Host github.com)Avoid stray copies: Only operate on repos under git/personal/<repo>/ or git/work/<repo>/. If you see git/<repo>/ directly without a .git/ directory, it's a stray copy—find the canonical location.
When editing files under obsidian/:
[[wikilinks]] and existing markdown conventionsdaily/ and GTD files like _DAILY.mdSkills and Python tools live in git/personal/agent-instructions/:
| Skill | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Daily Briefing | Health briefing from TimTracker (sleep, exercise, diet, mindfulness) |
| Update Daily Tasks | Refresh _DAILY.md from Asana |
| Deep Research | Research using OpenAI's deep research API |
| YouTube Analyzer | Analyze YouTube videos via Gemini API |
| Product Deep Research | Combined web + video product research |
| Convert PDF to Markdown | PDF conversion via PyMuPDF/marker-pdf |
| Compact Markdown | Normalize whitespace |
| TalkToFigma MCP | Figma MCP server workflow |
Python environment:
cd ~/brain/git/personal/agent-instructions
poetry install
poetry run <command>
When asked to do a known workflow, load the relevant skill SKILL.md and follow it exactly.
When you open ~/brain in Cursor, cloud agents (Cloud tab in the agent panel) are tied to a single Git repo. Brain has no repo at the root—repos live under git/personal/ and git/work/. So from the brain workspace, cloud agents may not see a clear repo to clone (e.g. for git/work/arda-intelligence/).
Options:
Default repo in Dashboard
Cursor Dashboard → Cloud Agents → Default repository: set it to the work repo (e.g. arda-industries/arda-intelligence). When the workspace has no single repo, Cursor may then use this default when you start a cloud agent. Try this first.
Multi-root workspace with work repo first
Open a .code-workspace that lists the work repo as the first folder and brain (or a subfolder) as the second, so the “primary” repo for cloud agents is the work repo while you still have brain context. Create it once, then use File → Open Workspace from File and open that file.
Example (save as e.g. ~/brain/brain-arda.code-workspace):
{
"folders": [
{ "name": "arda-intelligence", "path": "git/work/arda-intelligence" },
{ "name": "brain", "path": "." }
],
"settings": {}
}
Paths in .code-workspace are relative to the workspace file. So with the file in ~/brain, "path": "git/work/arda-intelligence" is correct.
Separate window when you need cloud agents
If the above don’t reliably target the right repo: open only ~/brain/git/work/arda-intelligence in a second Cursor window when you need to run cloud agents there. You lose the rest of brain in that window but cloud agents will work. This is the workaround many use on the Cursor forum.
Note: Parallel agents / worktrees and multi-repo cloud agents are limited today; Cursor is working on better multi-root and multi-repo support.
If you hit issues or needed extra guidance, propose edits to the relevant instruction file, then git commit and git push.