Identity (you and your assistant)

Status: bun LIFEOS/TOOLS/SetupInventory.ts status · required

What it does

Identity is how every session knows who you are and who it is. Two files carry it. LIFEOS/USER/PRINCIPAL/PRINCIPAL_IDENTITY.md is a short reference about you: name, location, timezone, how you like to work. LIFEOS/USER/DIGITAL_ASSISTANT/DA_IDENTITY.md is your assistant (the DA): its name, voice, personality and the rules for how it writes to you. Once the install has switched on their imports, both load at the start of every session.

The name and timezone the code uses, and the DA’s name and voice, are read first from CONFIG/LIFEOS_CONFIG.toml (see CoreConfig.md). The two markdown files carry the prose. Until you answer the interview, the shipped placeholders stand in: “Your Name”, “Aria” and “LifeOS”. The code treats those exact values as “not answered yet”, so a fresh install behaves generically instead of failing.

Everything else in the identity area is optional and grows over time:

File (under LIFEOS/USER/)	What it holds
PRINCIPAL/PRINCIPAL_PRIVATE.md	Private facts such as a home address and phone number. Read on demand, never loaded at startup.
PRINCIPAL/PRINCIPAL_MEMORY.md, DIGITAL_ASSISTANT/DA_MEMORY.md	One-line standing facts about you and about the DA, kept by the memory system.
PRINCIPAL/PRONUNCIATIONS.json	How the voice server should say names and terms.
PRINCIPAL/RESUME.md, PRINCIPAL/WRITINGSTYLE.md	Your career history and how you write.
DIGITAL_ASSISTANT/_presets.yaml	The five personality presets the DA wizard offers. Leave it alone.
DEFINITIONS.md, CANONICAL_CONTENT.md, CONTACTS.md, GEAR.md, BOOKS.md, PROJECTS.md, PROJECTS_RETIRED.md, MUSIC/MusicReference.md	Your vocabulary, themes, people, equipment, favorite books, project list and music taste. Skills read them when a task needs them.
DIGITAL_ASSISTANT/diary.jsonl, growth.jsonl, opinions.yaml	Written by the DA wizard and the growth tools. Do not create them by hand.

Fill in

Start with the interview, which does the first two steps for you. Ask your DA to run the LifeOS interview, or type /LifeOS interview. It asks, in this order: what to call your assistant and which voice it uses (the public default, or a Fish Audio voice model id you paste); then your name, how it is pronounced, your timezone and hometown. It writes those to CONFIG/LIFEOS_CONFIG.toml and PRINCIPAL/PRINCIPAL_IDENTITY.md, then continues into TELOS (see Telos.md). You can say skip to any question and done to stop; running it again later fills the gaps.

To shape the DA’s personality, run the DA wizard. It is interactive and asks short questions:

bun LIFEOS/TOOLS/DAInterview.ts                    # quick: your name, the DA's name, a preset, formality 1 to 5
bun LIFEOS/TOOLS/DAInterview.ts --depth standard   # adds a one-line personality, what it must ask before doing, writing style
bun LIFEOS/TOOLS/DAInterview.ts --depth deep       # adds a companion, the relationship (peers, commander or mentor) and topics
bun LIFEOS/TOOLS/DAInterview.ts --update           # revisit an existing DA; Enter keeps the current value

The presets are efficient, friendly, creative, mentor and worker. The wizard writes its files into a folder named after the DA, DIGITAL_ASSISTANT/<name>/, and registers the DA in LIFEOS_WORKERS/_registry.yaml. The file a session loads is the one directly in DIGITAL_ASSISTANT/, so after the wizard, copy the parts you want from <name>/DA_IDENTITY.md into DIGITAL_ASSISTANT/DA_IDENTITY.md.

To do it by hand, open the two required files and replace every line marked (interview). Keep PRINCIPAL_IDENTITY.md short, because it loads every session; put detail in the optional files above. The ## Writing Style section of DA_IDENTITY.md is the only place the DA’s voice is defined, so edit it until the DA sounds like someone you want to read. Private facts go in PRINCIPAL/PRINCIPAL_PRIVATE.md, one bullet each.

The identity files only load once CLAUDE.md imports them. Preview which imports would switch on, then apply:

bun skills/LifeOS/Tools/ActivateImports.ts            # dry run: lists the imports it would uncomment
bun skills/LifeOS/Tools/ActivateImports.ts --apply    # uncomments them in CLAUDE.md

Accounts and secrets

The identity files hold no secrets. Do not put keys, tokens or passwords in them; PRINCIPAL_PRIVATE.md is for facts like an address, and it stays on your machine.

Speaking in the DA’s voice is optional and runs on Fish Audio (Voice.md has the full setup). Store the key with echo off and check it without printing it:

bun LIFEOS/TOOLS/Secrets.ts set FISH_API_KEY
bun LIFEOS/TOOLS/Secrets.ts has FISH_API_KEY   # prints "FISH_API_KEY yes" or "... no"

The DA’s voice id is not a secret and lives in CONFIG/LIFEOS_CONFIG.toml under [da.voices.main]. A voice clone of yourself, if you make one, keeps its id in .env as FISH_PRINCIPAL_VOICE_ID, never in a file under USER/.

Prove it works

bun LIFEOS/TOOLS/LifeosConfig.ts                # prints the config the code resolves; exit 0 means it parses
bun LIFEOS/TOOLS/SetupInventory.ts status       # the Identity row should read "ready"

In the printed config, principal.name and da.name should be yours, not “Your Name” and “Aria”. If they still are, the interview has not written them yet. Then open a new session: the DA should know your name and its own without being told. If it does not, open CLAUDE.md in ~/.claude and check that the two identity import lines (PRINCIPAL_IDENTITY.md and DA_IDENTITY.md) are no longer commented out; the ActivateImports.ts --apply step above does that.