claude-code-complete-agent/examples/14-build-your-agent/prompt.md

Example 14: Build Your Personal Agent

This is not a demo. This is the example where you build something real.

Everything you explored in examples 01-13 demonstrated capabilities. This example puts them together into a personal agent that works for you specifically. Not a copy of the demo. Not a tutorial exercise. A setup you will actually use tomorrow morning.

Time needed: 45-60 minutes for the core setup. You will refine it over the first week of use.

---

What you will build

By the end of this example, you will have:

1. A CLAUDE.md written for your life and work (not the demo one)
2. A personal skill that automates something you do every week
3. A messaging channel connected to your phone
4. A scheduled automation that runs without you
5. A tested end-to-end flow: phone to agent to result to phone

This is the setup that makes people text their agent from bed and find the answer waiting when they sit down with coffee.

---

Step 1: Write your CLAUDE.md (15 minutes)

Close this repo's CLAUDE.md in your mind. Start fresh. Open a new project directory (or use an existing one) and create CLAUDE.md.

Write it like a briefing for a brilliant new colleague on their first day. Include:

# [Your Project or Life Context]

## Who I am
[Your role, what you do day to day, what you care about]

## How I work
[Communication preferences, formats you like, what annoys you]
[Example: "Be direct. Skip caveats. Bullet points over paragraphs."]

## What I am working on right now
[Your top 3-5 priorities with deadlines if they exist]

## What Claude should never do
[Hard boundaries. Things that would break trust.]
[Example: "Never send anything externally without my explicit OK"]

## Tools and accounts
[What MCP servers are configured, what services you use]
[Example: "Slack MCP connected to workspace X. Telegram channel active."]

How to know it is good enough

Read it back and ask: if a capable person read only this file, could they handle my Monday morning? If the answer is "mostly, yes," it is good enough. You will improve it every week.

Pattern from Example 05: This file is loaded at every session start. Everything you write here shapes every interaction.

---

Step 2: Write your first real skill (15 minutes)

Not the demo skill. Not a copy. A skill that solves a problem you have this week.

Think about what you do repeatedly that follows a pattern:

• A report you write every Monday
• Research you do before every meeting
• A summary you prepare for your manager
• A check-in you run on a project

Create .claude/skills/[your-skill-name].md:

---
name: [your-skill-name]
description: [one sentence that explains when to use this]
---

# [What This Does]

[Clear instructions for Claude. Be specific about:]

## Steps
1. [Where to get the input: files, web, memory]
2. [What to do with it: research, draft, analyze, compare]
3. [How to format the output: bullets, paragraphs, table]
4. [Where to save it: file path, message channel, both]

## Quality criteria
- [What makes this output good vs. mediocre]
- [What to never include or assume]

## Output format
[Exact structure you want every time]

How to know the skill works

Run it: /[your-skill-name]

Does the output match what you would have produced manually? If yes, you just automated a recurring task. If not, refine the instructions and run it again. Most skills take 2-3 iterations to get right.

Pattern from Example 06: If the skill involves research and writing, consider using the researcher/writer/reviewer agent pattern inside it. Multi-agent review catches errors that a single pass misses.

---

Step 3: Connect your phone (10 minutes)

Pick one channel. You can always add more later.

Telegram (works on any phone, recommended for first setup):

claude --channels

Follow the Telegram setup in messaging/telegram-channels-setup.md.

iMessage (if you live in Apple's ecosystem):

/install @anthropic-ai/claude-code-imessage
claude --channels

Follow messaging/imessage-setup.md.

Test it

From your phone, send: "Run /[your-skill-name]"

If the result comes back to your phone, your agent is connected.

Pattern from Example 07: Channels turn a desktop tool into a personal assistant you can reach from anywhere.

---

Step 4: Automate it (10 minutes)

Your skill works. Your phone is connected. Now make it run without you.

For a daily task:

Create a cron job that runs /[your-skill-name] every [weekday] at [time].
Use automation/daily-briefing.sh as a template. Show me the cron entry
before creating it.

For a weekly task:

/schedule "Run /[your-skill-name] and send me the result via Telegram"
at [next Monday]T07:00:00

Test it

Create a /loop test first to verify the flow works before committing to a cron job:

/loop interval=120

Run /[your-skill-name]. Send the result to [your channel].
Then wait for the next interval.

If the output arrives on your phone every 2 minutes, the automation works. Replace with a real schedule.

Pattern from Example 08: /loop for testing, CronCreate for daily drivers, /schedule for remote triggers.

---

Step 5: Test the full flow (5 minutes)

The real test. Put your phone down. Walk away from the computer.

From your phone, send:

Run /[your-skill-name] and tell me when it is done.

Wait.

When the result arrives, you have a working personal agent. Not a demo. Not an exercise. A system that does real work on your behalf, triggered from your phone, using your context, delivering to where you need it.

---

What you have now

Component	What it does	File
CLAUDE.md	Your context, always loaded	CLAUDE.md
Skill	Your recurring task, automated	.claude/skills/[name].md
Channel	Your phone connection	Telegram/iMessage/Discord
Schedule	Your automation trigger	cron or /schedule
Memory	Your persistent state	memory/MEMORY.md
Hooks	Your safety guardrails	hooks/

This is the same architecture, at a smaller scale, that runs production content pipelines. The pieces are the same. The difference is what you point them at.

---

What to do in your first week

Day 1-2: Use the skill manually a few times. Notice what the output gets wrong or could improve. Edit the skill file.

Day 3-4: Add a second skill for something else you do often. Start texting tasks from your phone as a habit.

Day 5-7: Check your CLAUDE.md. Is it still accurate? Add what you learned this week. Remove what turned out to be irrelevant.

After one week: You will know whether this is a novelty or a genuine tool. Most people who get this far keep going. The ones who do not usually stopped at the CLAUDE.md and never made it personal enough to be useful.

---

Growing from here

Your agent gets more useful the more you invest in it:

Add more skills. Every task you do more than twice a week is a candidate. A good personal setup has 3-5 skills after a month.

Add more tools. MCP servers connect Claude to your services. Slack, Google Drive, calendar, databases. Each one extends what your agent can do autonomously.

Add more agents. The .claude/agents/ directory can hold specialists for your domain. A "compliance checker," a "meeting prep" agent, a "customer research" agent. Pattern: give each agent a role, a scope, and clear instructions.

Tune the security. As you automate more, tighten the hooks. Add patterns to the deny list. Review the audit log weekly. The more autonomous your agent is, the more important the guardrails.

---

Honest assessment

This setup will not replace your judgment, your relationships, or your taste. It replaces the scaffolding: the research, the formatting, the status updates, the routine decisions, the cognitive overhead of remembering where you left off.

The people who get the most from it are the ones who are specific about what they need. A vague CLAUDE.md produces vague results. A precise one produces surprisingly useful results from day one.

The time investment is real: one hour to set up, five minutes a week to maintain. The return depends entirely on how well you describe your work and how consistently you use it.

Start with one skill. Make it genuinely useful. Everything else follows.