How to use core-skills

A practical guide for Claude Code (CLI) users. Prefer a visual interface? See the Cowork guide for Claude Desktop.

Before you start

This guide assumes you have installed core-skills and have Claude Code running in your terminal. If not, the install takes about 60 seconds.

You also need meeting transcripts. Most people use a recording app (like Otter, Fireflies, or Apple's built-in transcription) and copy-paste the text into Claude Code.

1

Process your first meeting

Takes 2 minutes

a

Open Claude Code

Open your terminal and type claude to start a session. Navigate to the folder where you want your documentation to live (this will become your "vault").

cd ~/Documents/my-vault && claude
b

Choose the right skill

/ops

For work meetings -- team syncs, standups, management meetings, client calls that belong to a project.

or
/transcript

For personal conversations, ad-hoc recordings, or anything that doesn't belong to a specific project.

Not sure? Use /ops -- it falls back gracefully when there's no org config.

c

Type the command and paste your transcript

In Claude Code, type the slash command followed by your meeting content. You can paste the entire transcript.

claude
> /ops Here's the transcript from today's weekly sync with the team...
[paste your full transcript here]
d

Review what Claude creates

Claude will process the transcript and create several files. It will show you what it found and ask for confirmation before saving:

  • Meeting summary -- structured with sections per topic, decisions highlighted, action items listed
  • CHANGELOG entry -- a one-line summary added to the project's change log
  • Insights -- decisions, preferences, and learnings extracted to _insights.yaml
  • Task import offer -- Claude will ask if you want to add action items to your task list

Say yes to the task import. Those tasks will show up in tomorrow's dashboard.

2

Build a daily routine

Three commands that change your workday

Morning
/daily-dashboard

See your day at a glance: today's meetings, active tasks, and preparation documents. Creates clickable symlinks on your desktop for quick access.

Before a meeting
/preparation david

Claude reads your previous conversations with that person, finds open action items, and creates a briefing with talking points and a suggested agenda. It also scans other contacts for recent cross-references. Replace "david" with the contact's name.

After a meeting
/ops [paste transcript]

Process the meeting. Get the structured summary, tracked decisions, imported tasks, and extracted insights -- all in one go.

3

Track your tasks

Tasks flow automatically from meetings to your dashboard

Common task commands

/tasks show View all active tasks across projects
/tasks done 3 Mark task #3 as complete
/tasks add "Review contract draft" Add a task manually
/tasks weekly See what you completed this week

You don't need to add tasks manually most of the time. When /ops or /transcript finds action items in a meeting, it offers to import them for you.

4

Understand your vault

Everything is plain Markdown and YAML -- no lock-in

What the folder structure looks like after a few weeks

my-vault/
_Dashboard.md your daily overview
project-alpha/
meetings/management/
260307-Weekly-Sync.md meeting summary
CHANGELOG.md decision log
_tasks.yaml tasks from this context
_insights.yaml extracted knowledge
_contacts/david-ekberg/
260306-preparation-david.md meeting prep
260307-call-Alex-David.md conversation summary
CHANGELOG.md
_tasks.yaml tasks from conversations
_insights.yaml insights from conversations

You can browse these files in Obsidian, VS Code, or any text editor. They're plain Markdown -- no proprietary format.

5

Let knowledge accumulate

This happens automatically -- just keep using the skills

Every meeting builds your knowledge base

When /ops or /transcript processes a meeting, it silently extracts durable insights -- things worth remembering long-term:

Decisions "Chose weekly deploys over monthly releases"
Preferences "Prefers async updates over meetings"
Learnings "Two-week sprints were too long for this team"
Opportunities "Could automate the reporting pipeline"
Patterns "Budget discussion postponed 3 meetings in a row"

These are stored in _insights.yaml files and can be explored through the optional visualisation app.

Backfill from existing content

Already have transcripts from before you installed core-skills? Extract insights retroactively:

/insights reprocess all

This scans all existing transcripts and builds the knowledge base from your historical content. Safe to run multiple times -- it won't create duplicates.

6

Using with Claude Code (terminal vs co-work)

Same skills, same commands, different interfaces

Terminal (CLI)

The classic way. Open your terminal, type claude, and use slash commands directly. Best for quick processing -- paste a transcript, get results, move on.

claude
> /daily-dashboard
Created: _Dashboard.md
3 meetings today, 7 active tasks, 1 preparation ready

VS Code / Cursor (co-work mode)

If you use Claude Code inside VS Code or Cursor, the experience is the same. Open the Claude Code panel and type slash commands just like in the terminal. Your vault files appear in the editor's file tree for easy browsing.

The advantage: you can see the generated Markdown files rendered in the editor while Claude processes your transcript in the side panel.

Tips for both modes

  • Start in your vault folder. Claude Code uses the current directory as context. If you're in your vault, it knows where to save files.
  • Just paste the whole transcript. Don't clean it up first. Claude handles messy transcriptions well -- filler words, speaker labels, timestamps are all fine.
  • Mention the project or person. If it's not obvious from the transcript, tell Claude: /ops This is the Acme weekly sync. [transcript]
  • Accept task imports. When Claude finds action items, say yes. They'll show up in your next /daily-dashboard.
  • Run /daily-dashboard every morning. It's the habit that ties everything together.

Quick reference

/ops [transcript] Process a work meeting
/ops status Show available org configs
/transcript [text] Process a personal conversation
/daily-dashboard Morning overview
/preparation [name] Prepare for a meeting
/tasks show View active tasks
/tasks done [#] Complete a task
/insights reprocess all Backfill knowledge from history
/update-skills update Update to latest version