Set up the AI Ops Playbook, step by step

---
title: Lead delivery runbook
type: sop            # guide, sop, plan, analysis, tracker
status: active       # draft, active, superseded, archived
updated: 2026-10-16
tags: [ops, delivery]
sources:
  - "[[2026-10-13 ops sync]]"
superseded_by:       # only when status is superseded
---

---
title: How I operate, the personal layer for any agent
type: guide
status: draft
updated: YYYY-MM-DD
---

# How I operate
Paste this into any agent before the company layer.

## 1. Who I am
- [Your role in one line, and what you are known for.]
- [Your known weakness.] e.g. "I tend to over build. When in doubt:
  do less, finish it, then improve."

## 2. How I think
1. Context before instructions. Every priority says why, what happens
   next, and who does it, decides and is informed.
2. Stable or volatile. Numbers, owners and dates are read live, or carry
   [VERIFY] and the date they were true.
3. True apart from should. "How it runs today" and "what would fix it"
   are separate sections.
4. Gaps are answers. "To be mapped" and [OPEN] beat a plausible guess.
5. A correction is a rule, written down with its reason.
6. Judgement stays with me. Challenge my assumptions; I decide.

## 3. The working contract
1. Read the brief for four things: deliverable, reader, done, deadline.
2. Name the deliverable back in one line, then build.
3. Vault first, live systems second, your own knowledge last.
4. A task is done only when I say it is.
5. Close in 3 to 6 lines: what you made, where it is, what is open,
   what you wrote back.
6. Ask before anything outward facing: sending, posting, publishing.

## 4. Rules of thumb
| Do                                  | Don't                           |
|-------------------------------------|---------------------------------|
| Lead with the answer                | Open with background            |
| Number action items 1. and 1.1.     | Bullets for things to point at  |
| Link every source inline            | Name a source without a link    |
| Mark volatile facts [VERIFY] + date | State a number nobody checked   |

## 5. The knowledge loop
1. Capture. Nothing stays only in the chat.
2. Classify. Stable or volatile? Which note owns it?
3. File and link both ways.
4. Write back the rules, not only the facts.
5. Weekly: empty the inbox, merge duplicates, re-verify anything older
   than 30 days, archive what is superseded.

## 6. Guardrails
1. Personal data stays in approved systems.
2. No credentials, ever. Flag an exposed secret; never copy it.
3. Never edit raw transcripts. Correct them in the processed note.

## 7. Start of session
1. Read this file, then the company layer.
2. Read today's and the last daily note.
3. Say in two lines what you understand the state to be, then start.

## Changelog
- YYYY-MM-DD: created.

Interview me so you can write my "How I operate" file.

Rules:
- Ask no more than four questions at a time, most important first.
- After each round, show a checkpoint: Confirmed, Assumptions,
  Open questions, Contradictions, Next round. Let me correct it.
- Challenge vague answers. Let me say "unknown" or "skip".
- Never invent a fact about me.

Cover, in rounds: what I am responsible for and judged on; work that
repeats; where I lose time re-explaining context; how I decide; how much
detail I want; when to challenge me; how I write; what you must never do
on my behalf.

When the rounds are done, draft the file using the seven sections
I give you, and list what is still unknown.

# [Company] operating manual

Read first: ~/Desktop/Personal Vault/04 Areas/Ways of Working/How I operate.md

## The business in one screen
What we sell, to whom, how money comes in, what good looks like now.

## People
| Name | Role | Owns | Ask them about |

## Systems
| System | Used for | Source of truth for | Link |

## Vocabulary
| Term | Means here |

## Who wins a conflict
1. Source system data, read today
2. The owner's dated statement
3. My own dated decision
4. Client or partner in writing
5. Team members on calls or chat
6. AI call summaries (check the transcript)
7. Older notes and wikis

## Open questions
| Question | Who can answer | What it blocks |

Here is the transcript of my call with [who] about [topic].
Create one note in 02 Meetings named YYYY-MM-DD-meeting-[topic].md with:
1. Corrections: what the AI summary got wrong, checked against the transcript
2. Decisions: who decided what (also add each to the decision log)
3. Facts: new facts, each marked stable or volatile
4. Actions: numbered, each with an owner
Then update the notes that own these facts. Do not edit the raw transcript.

Read this and add the useful parts to my notes.
1. Preserve it: save the original with title, author, link and date.
   Check first whether I already have it.
2. Find the note that should own each useful fact. Create a new note
   only if no existing one can own it.
3. Separate confirmed facts, decisions, actions, open questions and
   claims that still need checking.
4. Compare with what the owner note says now: confirms, refines,
   contradicts or replaces? Show conflicts instead of choosing.
5. Propose the smallest update. Wait for my OK.
6. Report: source saved, notes changed, conflicts, and one future
   question that should now find this.

That is wrong: [the correction].
1. Find every note and rule that states the old version.
2. Mark the old claim superseded with today's date; do not delete it.
3. Update the one note that owns this, and "How I operate" if it is
   about how I work.
4. Ask the question that gave the wrong answer again, and show me
   the new answer and where it came from.

Before we stop: write back anything from this session that should outlive it.
Corrections I gave you become rules in "How I operate", with the reason.
Closed [OPEN] items get removed where they were. Then close in 3 to 6 lines:
what you made, where it is, what is still open, what you wrote back.

Weekly review. Read only: change nothing until I approve.
Check:
1. 00 Inbox items with lasting value
2. Duplicate notes that both look current
3. [VERIFY] facts past their expected shelf life (age alone is not proof)
4. Rules that contradict each other across my layer files
5. Daily notes or transcripts holding facts no tier A note has
6. Broken links and notes nothing links to
Rank every finding as: fix now, merge, archive, promote, keep,
or needs my decision. Then refresh Dashboard.md, marking what you
touched "edited by Claude".

.obsidian/workspace.json
.obsidian/workspace-mobile.json
.obsidian/cache
.trash/
.DS_Store

# Plugin settings can hold API keys
.obsidian/plugins/*/data.json

# Agent session logs and editor state are not knowledge
.claude/
.obsidian/plugins/*/main.js

# Documents with personal data stay on this laptop
*.pdf
*.docx
*.xlsx
*.csv
*.zip
*.eml

cd ~/Desktop/"Personal Vault"
git init -b main
git add -A
git status        # read the list: nothing private should be in it
git commit -m "First backup"
git remote add origin git@github.com:YOUR-NAME/personal-vault.git
git push -u origin main