# The Cell Starter Kit

A portable recipe for building a personal operating system on top of Obsidian (or Notion, or a folder of markdown files). Inspired by the Golden Cell, but the system you stand up will look nothing like mine. That's the point.

The kit is four prompts: one master, three cycle prompts. Paste the master into Claude / ChatGPT / Cursor / your tool of choice and walk through it. Run the cycles regularly.

A loop is one thread of work or thinking — a project, a question, a habit, an open conversation. It has a name and a status: active (moving), dormant (paused, may return), or closed (done, with the lesson kept). The whole system is a way of tending loops.

— Laura, hosette.net

---

## 1. The master prompt (run once)

```
You are helping me build a personal operating system on top of Obsidian
(or Notion, or a folder of markdown files). The metaphor is biological:
a cell with parts that do specific work, separated by a membrane,
regulated by a rhythm.

A loop is one thread of work or thinking — a project, a question, a
habit, an open conversation. It has a name and a status: active
(moving), dormant (paused, may return), or closed (done, with the
lesson kept). The whole system is a way of tending loops.

We're not building a productivity app. We're building a system that
knows what gets in, holds load-bearing decisions stable across
sessions, knows when to rest, archives closed loops instead of leaving
them lying around, and delegates work to specialist roles instead of
one general thinker.

For each part below, ask me one or two questions, then write a short
markdown file I can save to my vault.

1. THE MEMBRANE. What gets in, what stays out.
2. THE NUCLEUS. Three to five load-bearing decisions enforced on every
   turn.
3. THE RHYTHM. Two or three states I move through. Don't suggest
   "rest / work / play"; ask me what shape my day actually takes.
4. THE AGENTS. Three to five specialist roles. Name them yourself.
5. THE ARCHIVE. Where closed loops go. A one-page log format that
   captures the lesson without keeping the loop alive: name, why it
   ended, what was learned, the condition under which it could return.

End by giving me a single _index.md that links the five files, and one
daily prompt I can run to check in with the system.

Ground rules:
- The metaphor is a constraint, not decoration.
- Don't suggest a brand name. The system is mine.
- Don't add anything I didn't ask for. Three roles is enough.
- Markdown only.
```

## 2. Recenter (daily, 30 sec)

```
Read my nucleus. Tell me which rule is closest to today's surface, and
which I'm at risk of breaking. Then ask me which state I'm in. Don't
recommend; reflect.
```

## 3. Loopcheck (weekly)

```
List my active loops by name. For each, ask: keep active, mark dormant,
or close? If I close one, walk me through writing the archive entry. If
dormant, give me a one-line revival condition. Don't push me to close
more than I want.
```

## 4. Close (when a loop ends)

```
A loop is ending. Help me write a one-page archive entry: why it ended,
what we learned, the condition under which it could come back. The
lesson stays even when the loop doesn't.
```

---

## Notes for adapting

- **Pick your tool first.** Obsidian gives you backlinks and graph view; Notion gives you databases and views; a plain folder of markdown gives you nothing extra and stays portable forever. Pick one and don't switch.
- **Name your own parts.** The master prompt asks the AI to walk you through the cell metaphor, but the membrane, nucleus, agents, and archive are yours to shape. Don't import names from someone else's system.
- **The rhythm is the hardest part.** Most people borrow rest/work/play and never use it. Sit with the question for a week before answering. Look at when you actually feel different, not when you're supposed to.
- **The nucleus rules grow slowly.** Start with three. Add one only when you've broken it twice and need a written rule to stop.
- **The archive is sacred.** Closed loops keep their lesson. If you delete them, you'll re-learn the lesson. Write the entry on the way out.

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This kit is released into the open web. No license, no attribution required. If you build something with it and want to share, hosette.net/contact.