TARS

TARS turns a local Markdown workspace into a persistent Claude assistant for meetings, memory, tasks, briefings, strategic thinking, and stakeholder communication.

TARS is built around a few core ideas:

• The local Markdown workspace is the data model. Obsidian is optional and can be enabled later as a visual browser.
• The local TARS helper (tars-vault) is the required guardrail layer for workspace writes. It ships with the plugin and runs locally.
• TARS-managed notes use schema-validated tars- frontmatter properties.
• Live Obsidian Bases are available in Obsidian mode; headless users can query the same files through Claude.
• Retrieval combines SQLite FTS5 over structured memory with a local FastEmbed + sqlite-vec semantic layer over prose (journal, transcripts, contexts).
• Meetings run a nuance-capture pass after summarization — contrarian views, quotes, numbers, unusual terms are preserved verbatim.
• The inbox is a first-class intake path: drop transcripts, PDFs, decks, docs, screenshots, exports, or rough notes into inbox/pending/ and ask TARS to process the inbox in bulk.
• Integrations are provider-agnostic: skills resolve a capability (calendar, tasks, meeting-recording, data-warehouse, analytics, design, documentation, project-tracker, etc.) and the registry picks the active server.
• Office output (.pptx, .docx, .xlsx, .pdf, HTML) delegates to Anthropic's first-party rendering skills; TARS owns content structuring, brand application, companion notes, and workspace filing.
• Tasks and durable memory always go through review before persistence.
• Cold-start friction is addressed by progressive /welcome, seven onboarding personas, and graceful degradation when integrations are missing.
• Wikilink hygiene is centralized: every [[…]] flows through format_wikilink; smart-quote and Obsidian-illegal links are rejected at the write side; legacy broken links can be repaired in bulk.
• Scheduled work is optional and registered through /welcome --setup-schedules when a scheduler is available. Claude does not run in the background by itself, so weekly staleness, drift, and rollup work is surfaced through scheduled jobs or manual /maintain --weekly.

First run

After installing the plugin, run /welcome. It creates a local Markdown workspace, records your identity and persona, and then guides you into a first paste-or-upload workflow before anything is saved.

/welcome

What you get over time

• Day 1: useful structure from pasted meetings, emails, calls, and docs.
• Day 7: inbox files, memory, people, decisions, and tasks start showing up in /answer and /briefing.
• Day 30: TARS becomes an operating layer for recurring work, follow-through, and organizational context.

What ships in the framework

The framework ships with 14 skills, 14 slash-command wrappers, note templates, office content outlines, seven personas, live views for Obsidian mode, and deterministic maintenance scripts.

Core user-facing capabilities:

• Daily and weekly briefings with calendar, task, people, and initiative context (plus a Monday telemetry footer)
• Meeting processing that links transcripts, journal notes, decisions, and follow-through — with nuance-capture pass
• Inbox processing for bulk transcripts, PDFs, decks, docs, screenshots, exports, and raw notes
• Task extraction with accountability testing, duplicate checks, age / escalation tracking
• Durable memory capture for people, initiatives, decisions, products, vendors, competitors, and organizational context
• Hybrid fast lookup — FTS5 over memory, semantic over journal + transcripts + contexts, plus integrations
• Strategic analysis (five modes), communications drafting (RASCI + brand-aware), initiative planning
• /lint --actions materialized review queue (subsets: wikilinks, patterns, curator) + /maintain --weekly scheduled pipeline
• /learn --review-patterns for observed-preference learning (user model + workflow-alias proposals)
• /create office output orchestration via Anthropic's first-party skills

Architecture at a glance

The framework uses this high-level structure:

skills/           Behavioral and workflow protocols (14 skills)
commands/         Thin slash-command wrappers into the skills
hooks/            SessionStart / PreToolUse / PostToolUse / PreCompact / SessionEnd
mcp/tars-vault/   Local TARS helper + retrieval + organization tools
_system/          Source defaults for scaffolded runtime config and schemas
_views/           Source templates for optional Obsidian `.base` views
templates/        Canonical TARS note templates (+ office content outlines)
scripts/          Deterministic stdlib-only validators and maintenance utilities
.claude/skills/   Obsidian-specific helper skills used by the agent

A deployed TARS workspace uses this runtime layout. These directories live in your workspace, not in this repository. The plugin scaffolds them on first /welcome:

_system/               Runtime config, install state, maturity, schemas, guardrails
memory/                Durable knowledge graph
journal/               Skill outputs and dated notes
contexts/              Deep reference material and generated artifacts
inbox/pending/         Raw intake waiting for processing (incl. weekly review queues)
inbox/processed/       Processed intake awaiting later maintenance
archive/               Preserved transcripts and archived material
templates/             User-visible templates copied for portability
scripts/               Workspace-local helper scripts
index.md               Cheat sheet and natural-language workflow guide

Put raw files in inbox/pending/ and say "process inbox" or run /maintain inbox. TARS inventories the folder, classifies each item, routes it to the right workflow, proposes memory/tasks for review, writes durable context, and moves processed items to inbox/processed/.

The plugin/workspace boundary is strict: plugin-shipped skills are read-only from a user's perspective, and any auto-created or user-tunable behavior lives in the workspace (_system/install.yaml, _system/user-model.md, _system/workflows.yaml).

Quick start

1. Install the framework from the marketplace or from a local checkout.
2. Point TARS at a local folder for your Markdown workspace.
3. Run /welcome to scaffold the workspace, pick a persona, and set your identity.
4. Paste or upload a meeting transcript, PDF/report excerpt, email thread, or rough notes when welcome offers the first guided workflow.
5. Continue deeper setup later with /welcome --continue-setup; enable Obsidian with /welcome --enable-obsidian if you want live views.

Examples:

/welcome
/briefing
/meeting
/tasks
/maintain inbox
/answer What do I know about the platform rewrite?
/think Stress-test this roadmap decision.

Slash commands are shortcuts. Natural-language requests work too: "process everything in my inbox", "what should I focus on today", "remember Sarah owns onboarding", or "stress-test this roadmap".

How TARS behaves

TARS is designed to preserve signal and avoid silent drift:

• It checks the workspace before writing and classifies findings as NEW, UPDATE, REDUNDANT, or CONTRADICTS.
• It refuses workspace writes when the local helper cannot resolve a real TARS workspace or when the install record points at a different folder.
• It validates managed note frontmatter against workspace schemas before create-time writes.
• It uses the durability test before proposing memory persistence.
• It uses the accountability test before proposing tasks.
• It preserves transcript text so later queries can inspect what was actually said.
• It records framework issues and user improvement ideas in _system/backlog/.
• It performs scheduled or session-start maintenance to keep schemas, links, integration indexes, and archival state healthy.
• It coaches lightly through Daily Digest suggestions, milestone moments, and /help, with controls to show fewer tips or turn coaching off.

Documentation map

Start here depending on what you need:

• docs/GETTING-STARTED.md for setup and first workflows
• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the current system model
• docs/BUILD.md for packaging and release mechanics
• CONTRIBUTING.md for maintenance and change hygiene
• CHANGELOG.md for release history
• docs/CATALOG.md for the product and adoption overview
• docs/MOBILE-USAGE.md for Claude Remote Control on mobile

License

This repository is licensed under PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0. See LICENSE.