A step-by-step guide to building a self-maintaining knowledge base using one folder, one subscription, and one copy-pasted prompt

I spent the Labour Day long weekend building an AI second brain — the kind Andrej Karpathy wrote about, where an AI reads and maintains your knowledge base for you. I was building it to think better at work. What it gave me instead was a picture of myself I didn’t recognise.

I went to a vibecoding workshop at Google, went home, and built the most pointless app I could think of. I’ve never felt more accomplished.

What happens when crafting the perfect AI prompt takes longer than doing the task yourself? Two simple techniques I used to transform AI into a daily workflow partner.

I loved the idea of a Second Brain, but the time it took to build felt like a net-negative. Then I found a way to outsource the grunt work by using AI.