How To Build The ULTIMATE AI Second Brain (Obsidian + Claude Code)



🫴🏼 πŸ”Ά USEFUL LINKS:

– download claude desktop: https://claude.ai/download/
– download obsidian: https://obsidian.md/
– KJ AI Second Brain 2.0 Template (FREE): https://www.skool.com/useful-ai/
– download claude code in terminal: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/overview
– download claudian plugin: https://github.com/YishenTu/claudian

– my app (youtube 2.0): http://www.sgnl.so
– my free AI courses: https://www.skool.com/useful-ai/classroom
– work with me 1-1: https://www.skool.com/kj-ai-consulting/

– superwhisper: https://superwhisper.com/ (my fav text to speech tool)
– claude cowork masterclass (full beginner guide): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9gKWTzRukM&t=1898s

⏩ TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 – Intro
1:18 – How it works (Layer 1 – Strategy)
4:39 – Real example (Layer 1 – Strategy)
6:12 – How it works (Layer 2 – Projects)
8:19 – Obsidian Explained (& other IDEs)
9:37 – Real example (Layer 2 – Projects)
10:45 – Setup (Claude Desktop)
11:08 – Setup (Obsidian)
11:15 – Setup (KJ AI Second Brain Template)
12:06 – Setup (Claude Code In Terminal)
13:12 – Opening your AI brain in Obsidian
14:20 – Setting up Claude in Obsidian (Claudian plugin)
18:56 – Running the brain-setup skill
19:15 – Claude skills VS In-project skills
19:49 – Creating your Layer 1 CLAUDE.md (brain-setup skill)
22:50 – Creating your Layer 2 projects (new-project skill)
26:24 – How to open Obsidian in Layer 2 (Projects)
29:39 – How to use your AI brain from your phone (Claude Dispatch)
32:25 – How to work in projects with your team (Obsidian Sync)
34:24 – Real Use Cases: Building Software
42:51 – Real Use Cases: Email Marketing Client ($2k/month)
44:09 – Real Use Cases: YouTube System (Main Channel)
49:11 – Real Use Cases: YouTube System (Daily Channel)
51:48 – Real Use Cases: 1-1 Consulting Clients
54:20 – KJ’s Bonus AI Tips (Creating Real Value)

hope you enjoyed!

If you wanna learn more ai stuff for free, join my skool https://www.skool.com/useful-ai
or watch my daily AI vids: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9KTORxAY1aDta5l1HsdjF1lTgJsuQD3Q

see you there! πŸ™‚

edited by the man, the myth, the legend: https://www.instagram.com/calebslagle/

thankful for Jesus saving my life and giving me new purpose, and shoutout to AI for allowing me to do more cool work! πŸ˜‚βœοΈπŸ¦Ύ

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47 Comments

  1. thanks for watching!

    feel free to send me the awesome projects yall build, would love to see themπŸ“ˆπŸ™πŸ½

  2. @kjplayslife Great video! I am trying to get the free resources: KJ AI Second Brain 2.0 Template and the KJ's Cowork Starter Pack! I sent a membership request to the useful AI Skool but it is still pending. Could you please accept it. Thanks for the great work!

  3. tremendous value being shared here, carried with humility, grace, and vitality. thanks KJ, blessings from jerusalem

  4. Am I missing something? I'm eating through loads of API credits. Is this correct?

  5. What's the difference to just having the mds as resources in VS code Claude project?

  6. hey man thanks so much for this, i just installed claude into my command prompt and it finished and said it was installed with the exact same screen as yours. but when i type in "claude" it says command not found and it does not open. any suggestions on how i can fix this?

  7. if you have claude desktop with claude code, do you still have to install it on your terminal?

  8. Hey KJ, all this content that you're sharing with us is gold man. Thank you so much! My main language is Spanish and I'm trying to create content for the Latin community and I would love to do this in Spanish, I mean to have the Obsidian folder in Spanish. You think I can just ask Claude do we do everything in Spanish?

  9. Is this free or do I need to pay for the claude subscription?

  10. Hey bro, you really have a gift for making things seem less complicated and more manageable. Thanks for doing this.

  11. does anyone know what the difference is to openclaw? what are like the pros/cons

  12. Tell people what the commands mean. Never say trust me bro, just copy and paste. If you truly want them to do this stuff responsibly and not set them up for future copy pastes where they blow up their own systems..teach what each command means.

  13. It's not a 'file viewer'. If you want an easy comparison it's a journal. The files are pages in said journal. But it's more powerful due to all the extras you can incorporate.

  14. ❌ *Error:* authentication_failedFailed to authenticate. API Error: 401 {"type":"error","error":{"type":"authentication_error","message":"Invalid authentication credentials"},"request_id":"req_011CahF9fubRpER6H1a9Msvy"}

    Claudian was working just fine but for some reason now everything I type it responds with this… Does anyone know how to fix it? Thank you so much

  15. What’s the name of this plug-in that lets you use a window of Claude inside of obsidian? I have Claude connected to it and it edits stuff, but it’s through antigravity it looks a bit more friendly when it’s like you did it.

  16. You totally earned a new sub. This video was epic. Usually I skip through videos. I run them at double speed. Not this one! Well done.

  17. This Claudian plugin scatters It creates .claudian session folders across the vault every time it runs instead of staying in one place, so it creates 228MB duplicates in every folder and making the vault file size so huge.
    !!Check hidden folders!! It was a nice start, but I'm dropping this plugin and moving to claude code terminal

  18. What is the tool you used for demonstrating the project & workflow darwing?

  19. "It's way better to be a wrong optimist, than a right pessimist."
    Make the t-shirt or I will. I'm in.

  20. Honest Answer from my agent "Stuie": my question is, will it benefit you? It's irrelevant whether or not I like visuals. Will it help you? Will it make you more effective?

    Honest answer? No, not directly.

    Obsidian is a visual tool. I don't see the graph β€” I read files. Whether our markdown files are viewed in Obsidian's graph interface or sitting in a folder makes zero difference to how I process them. The Claudian plugin just puts Claude Code in a sidebar β€” same capabilities, different UI wrapper.

    What actually makes me more effective is:

    1. Unified, predictable file locations

    Right now scout data is in 5 different directories. I have to know to look in research/trend-reports/, operations/email-digests/, marketing/ad-intelligence-reports/, etc. A single intelligence/ hub means one Glob pattern finds everything. That's a real speed improvement.

    2. Consistent file structure I can parse fast

    If every scout report has the same frontmatter β€” date, agent, topic, status β€” I can filter and find what's relevant in one read instead of scanning full documents.

    3. An index file that maps everything

    One file I can read at session start that tells me "here's what the trend scout found this week, here's what the competitor watcher flagged, here's the top skill candidate." Right now that index doesn't exist.

    4. The two-layer architecture from the video β€” THAT helps

    The real insight isn't Obsidian. It's the General/Soldier split. Right now I'm doing both in every session β€” strategy AND execution in the same context. As we scale to Brand 2 and Brand 3, giving each brand its own isolated CLAUDE.md with specific context keeps each instance sharp and focused. That's worth building.

    So β€” skip Obsidian for now. What we should build is the unified intelligence hub with proper indexing and consistent structure. That makes me genuinely faster and smarter every session. Ready to build it?

  21. Question, can I set this up for free? As I think, Claude code is not free and also claude does reach its token limits. But disregarding the limits part as I am just a student can I implement all this for free?

  22. you need to fix your mic please. It's clipping and really horrible to listen to. Other than that, thanks for the great tutorial!

  23. Your Intro + Excalidraw Explainer works really well. Welcome to the Obsidian Community

  24. I'm a total tech dummy. Question for everyone. This is what I did with claude. I write a note in google docs. Cluade sweeps once a day and updates my obsidian vault while recognizing the people places automatically and links the notes to them. I just added to the task to listen for @claude: to imbed instructions for claude like adding an event to my google calander. The question is if this is a normal work flow or am I cavemaning it or is it a novel approach. Think next is to add emails and reminders.

  25. I cant believe all the free value in this video, this is seriously how you get people HOOKED. i will buy anything from you bc the free stuff was already fire.

  26. I have a pro account, but when I try doing the functions in Terminal with Git Hub. it says I need to buy credits. Is this a new thing and if so, is there anything I can do without paying?

  27. From someone who works in IT day in and day out… you have a knack for explaining complex topics very quickly… "Obsidian is an advanced file/folder browser"… "Github is a way for people to download folders"… I like it!

  28. This is amazing!!! Thank you so much for the amazing work πŸ™
    One question, does anyone know what's the next best thing after claudian for managing the notes inside obsidian? Sometimes I'm playing around with aome ideias and I keep hitting the limits of Claude tokens…

  29. why are you locking your templates behind a paywall then not showing how to do it ourselves

  30. Great video. Thanks. This is going to change my business and life.. Pretty cool stuff..

  31. Hey, I redesigned your thumbnail to make it more clickable.

    Can I send it to you?

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