Building a Personal Knowledge Base

Appearance

Setting Up Your Workspace ​

~10 minutes. You'll have a working workspace with folder structure, preferences, and starter skills.

Prerequisites ​

Required: Claude Code installed and working. If not, install it first from claude.ai/code.

  • VS Code with Claude Code extension (strongly recommended)
  • Tools verified. If you haven't already, run through Before You Start to confirm your search, project tracker, and code tools are connected. The setup is much more personalized when Claude can already see your tools.

Install the Personal KB Skills ​

The personal knowledge base skills can be installed from a skills marketplace or manually. The exact installation depends on your setup.

Option A: Plugin marketplace (if available) ​

In the Claude Code chat panel:

bash
# Add a skills marketplace (one time only)
claude plugin marketplace add <your-marketplace-url> --scope user

# Install the personal KB plugin
claude plugin install personal-kb

Approve the prompts. Then restart Claude Code. After restart, the /pkb-setup skill is available.

Option B: Manual skill installation ​

You can also install skills by cloning them into your .claude/skills/ directory. Ask Claude: "Help me set up a personal knowledge base workspace."

Run the Setup ​

Open your workspace folder in VS Code and launch Claude Code. In the chat panel, type:

/pkb-setup

The setup skill detects your tools, asks about your role and preferences, creates the folder structure, and installs your first skills. Approve the file creation prompts as they come.

Have a meeting transcript ready? Check your recordings folder. The setup will ask for one at the end. You can skip and come back later.

What You Get ​

After running /pkb-setup, your Explorer sidebar shows this structure:

ExplorerMY-WORKSPACE
▼📁.claude/skills← your skills
▼📁My_KB← your knowledge base
▶📁_SystemWork-Board, Health, Goals
▶📁0-Inboxincoming items, Claude outputs
▶📁1-Projectsyour active work
▼📁2-Areasongoing responsibilities
▶📁Peopleauto-created from meetings
▶📁Dynamicsdecisions, patterns
▶📁Meetingsorganized by week
▶📁3-Resourcesreference materials, data, research
▶📁4-Archivecompleted work
📄CLAUDE.md← your role, preferences, path registry
Five folders following PARA: Inbox, Projects, Areas, Resources, Archive. They fill up as you process meetings.

Key files to know:

  • CLAUDE.md: Your configuration. Defines your role, team, and a KB Path Registry that maps semantic names (PEOPLE, MEETINGS, RESOURCES) to physical folders. Skills reference semantic names, not paths. Learn more →
  • _System/Work-Board.md: Your task board. DOING, TODAY, THIS WEEK, WAITING, DONE.
  • .claude/skills/: Your skills. Pre-built workflows like /start-day, /process-meeting, /week-review. How skills work →

Why folders instead of tags? Because Claude reads folders. When you ask "what did we decide about X?", Claude searches the Decisions folder. When you ask "prep me for a meeting with George," Claude reads George's People file. Structure makes your AI agent faster and more accurate.

The Five Folders (PARA) ​

Your KB follows the PARA method by Tiago Forte:

  • 0-Inbox: New stuff lands here. Claude outputs, unprocessed items.
  • 1-Projects: Active work with deadlines. One folder per project.
  • 2-Areas: Ongoing responsibilities. People profiles, org dynamics, meeting notes.
  • 3-Resources: Reference material, data analysis, research. Topics of interest.
  • 4-Archive: Completed or inactive. Moved here during weekly reviews.

_System is infrastructure: Work-Board, Health tracking, Goals. Not a working folder.

Browsing Your KB ​

Your KB is local markdown files. You can read them in any text editor. Here are two options:

VS Code (already installed) ​

Click any .md file in the Explorer sidebar to read it. For a formatted view, open the file and press Cmd+Shift+V (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+V (Windows) to toggle markdown preview.

Obsidian is a free markdown editor that adds three features VS Code preview doesn't have:

  • Wiki-links as navigation. When a meeting note mentions [[George-Costanza]], clicking it opens George's People profile directly.
  • Backlinks. On George's profile, you see every meeting and decision that references him.
  • Graph view. A visual map showing how your people, projects, and decisions connect over time.

To set it up:

  1. Download from obsidian.md and install.
  2. Open Obsidian. Click "Open folder as vault."
  3. Select your My_KB folder.

That's it. Your files stay on your machine, and both tools read the same files.

You don't need Obsidian to use the KB. VS Code is your primary interface for working with Claude. Obsidian is for browsing and reading what Claude produces. If you prefer VS Code for everything, skip this step entirely.

Your First Week ​

1
Day 1: Process 2-3 meeting recordings
Say "process my meeting from today." After 3 meetings, you have real people profiles and decisions.
2
Day 2-3: Try the morning briefing
Say "start my morning." Claude reads your calendar, checks your Work Board, and preps you for each meeting using KB context.
3
Day 4-5: Keep processing meetings
The more you process, the richer your context. People profiles get communication style, positions, interaction history.
4
Friday: First weekly review
Say "do my weekly review." Synthesizes the week: accomplishments, patterns, plan ahead.

This is context engineering, not a quick fix. The value compounds over time. Week 1 is useful. Month 2 is transformative.

Troubleshooting ​

Claude gives generic answers

Expected for the first few days. After 3-5 processed meetings, responses improve significantly. Claude needs your context to be useful.

/pkb-setup not found after install

Make sure you restarted Claude Code after installing the plugin. If still not found, verify the install and check that personal-kb appears in your installed skills.

Next: Your First Skills: Enriching the Workspace

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