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Level 1 — Hire Your Chief of Staff

Welcome back. If you read Level 0, you're sold on the idea. Now we hire your Chief of Staff.

Real talk before we start: there's one mildly nerdy stretch in here — you'll open a couple of terminal windows and paste a few commands. I know that sounds scary. It isn't. You're copying lines I'm giving you, hitting Enter. You can't break anything. After this install, you barely touch the terminal again — talking to your Chief of Staff feels like texting.

If this whole level gives you the ick, text me. We'll screen-share for 30 minutes, I'll do the typing, you'll be running. Zero shame — probably the smart move for most people.

Otherwise, here's the gentle walkthrough. Total time: ~30 minutes.

The big picture

Your Chief of Staff is going to live in a special "office" inside your Windows machine. That office is a free thing Microsoft built right into Windows called WSL (don't worry about what the letters stand for). Once it's set up, you'll click an Ubuntu icon in your Start menu to open the office. Everything else lives in there.

You need:

  1. An Anthropic account ($20/mo Pro plan) — pays for the AI brain.
  2. The office (WSL + Ubuntu) — where your Chief of Staff lives.
  3. Claude Code — the actual assistant app, installed inside the office.
  4. PAI — gives your Chief of Staff a memory and the ability to grow over time.

Don't worry about what any of this means yet. Just follow the steps.

Part 1 — Get an Anthropic account (3 min)

  1. Go to https://claude.ai in your browser.
  2. Click Sign Up. Use your Google login or your email — whichever you prefer.
  3. Once you're signed in, find the Upgrade option (under your profile menu) and pick Pro at $20/month.

Pro is plenty for now. You can bump to Max later if you fall in love with this.

✅ Done with Part 1.

Part 2 — Build your Chief of Staff's office (5 min + maybe a reboot)

This is the only Windows-specific step. We're going to set up the little Linux "office" where your Chief of Staff will live.

Step A — Open PowerShell as administrator:

  1. Press the Windows key.
  2. Type: powershell
  3. Right-click "Windows PowerShell" in the search results → pick Run as administrator.
  4. Windows pops up a "Do you want to allow this app to make changes?" — click Yes.

What you'll see: A blue terminal window opens with text like PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>.

Step B — Install WSL:

Copy/paste this line into the blue window and hit Enter:

wsl --install -d Ubuntu

What you'll see: A few minutes of progress text. WSL features turn on, Ubuntu downloads, things get configured. When it finishes, it may say "Changes will not be effective until the system is rebooted." If it asks you to reboot, reboot now before continuing. (Otherwise, skip the reboot.)

Step C — Open Ubuntu and set up your account:

After reboot (or right now if no reboot was needed): open the Start menu and click Ubuntu in your apps list.

What you'll see: A new black terminal window opens. It says "Installing, this may take a few minutes..." and then asks you to create a UNIX username.

  1. Type a username (lowercase, no spaces — bob, alex, whatever you want). Hit Enter.
  2. Type a password. Hit Enter. Type it again to confirm.

Heads up: When you type the password, the screen won't show ANY characters — no dots, no stars, nothing. That's normal. The terminal hides it. Just type it twice carefully.

What you'll see: A welcome message, then a prompt like alex@LAPTOP-X1:~$. You're now inside your Chief of Staff's office. Everything from here lives in this Ubuntu window.

✅ Done with Part 2. You can close the blue PowerShell window — you won't need it again. Keep the Ubuntu window open.

Part 3 — Install Node.js + Claude Code (3 min)

You're still in the Ubuntu window. Copy/paste this line and hit Enter:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y nodejs npm

It'll ask for your password (the one you set in Part 2). Type it (remember, it won't show), hit Enter.

What you'll see: A wall of scrolling text. Ignore all of it. Wait until the prompt comes back. Takes about 60 seconds.

Then paste this and hit Enter:

sudo npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

What you'll see: More scrolling. Wait for the prompt.

Part 4 — Say "hi" to your Chief of Staff (2 min)

Type claude and hit Enter.

What you'll see: A web browser tab pops open asking you to log in to Claude. Sign in with the Anthropic account you made in Part 1. Click Authorize. The browser will say "you can close this tab now." Close it.

Switch back to the Ubuntu window.

What you'll see: A friendly welcome message. The cursor is waiting for you to type.

Type hi and hit Enter.

It will say hi back.

You just talked to your Chief of Staff for the first time. Try one more thing — type:

what can you help me with?

Read what it says. That's a window into your new life.

When you're done playing, press Ctrl+C twice to leave Claude. You'll see the alex@LAPTOP-X1:~$ prompt return.

Part 5 — Give your Chief of Staff a home (5 min)

One more thing. Your Chief of Staff needs a home — a permanent place to store memories, daily habits, and skills. This is a single command.

Copy/paste this line into Ubuntu and hit Enter:

curl -sSL https://ourpai.ai/install.sh | bash

What you'll see: A welcome banner, then a wizard that asks you a few short questions:

When the wizard finishes, you'll see a "✅ Done" message and your cursor back. That's it.

You don't need to understand what just installed. All you need to know: your Chief of Staff now has a permanent home and can remember, grow, and build skills from here.

✅ You did it

Your Chief of Staff is hired and has a home. Here's what just happened:

To talk to your Chief of Staff again later:

  1. Open the Start menu → click Ubuntu
  2. In the terminal that opens, type claude and hit Enter
  3. Start talking.

That's the whole user manual. Three steps.

Tomorrow morning

Tomorrow you'll do your first daily ritual — your first kaizen. Five minutes. One small annoyance dies.

Pick a tomorrow-morning time when you're not rushed. Even 6 minutes counts. Set an alarm if you need to. When that alarm goes off, open levels/02-first-kaizen.md and follow it.

See you tomorrow.

— Bob

If you got stuck