Your founder has shared three folders with you: the Team layer (read), the Leaders layer (edit), and the shared workspace (for deliverables). They'll have sent you this link once that's done. If you can't see those folders when you add them in step 8, that's the only thing to check with them, then carry on.
Get ready
Your account, your model, your export, and where your private brain will live. Work top to bottom.
1.Use your own Claude account
Do this in your own Claude account (Pro, Max, or Team), in the Cowork desktop app (the phone apps can't run it). Your private brain lives in your account, so it stays yours and leaves with you.
2.Request your Claude data export Do this early
Your private brain is built from your own AI history. Click your initials, bottom-left, then Settings → Privacy → Export data. Claude emails a download link when it's ready, which can take minutes to hours, so kick it off now and carry on with the next steps while you wait.
Open your data controls →3.Set Opus 4.8 and thinking to High
Click the model name near the message box, choose Opus 4.8, set Effort → High, and turn Thinking on. The migration reads a lot in one pass, so a lighter model gets slow and re-asks questions.
4.Choose where your private brain will live
Pick one. Cloud is recommended so your brain is backed up. Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive if you have them, or your own computer to start. This is your storage, separate from the business brain.
5.Install your cloud drive's desktop app Skip if local
If you chose cloud, install the sync app (Google Drive for desktop, or OneDrive) and sign in, so the folder lives on your computer where your AI can reach it.
6.Sync the folders your founder shared, and make them available offline
Find the shared folders your founder gave you (Team layer, Leaders layer, shared workspace) and set them to available offline (Google Drive: "Available offline"; OneDrive: "Always keep on this device"). A green tick means they're on your computer. These are folders your founder shared, not ones you create.
7.Download and unzip your export When the email arrives
When Claude's email lands, download the ZIP and unzip it. The link only lasts 24 hours, so grab it promptly. If it expires, just request a fresh export.
Run the migration
Point Cowork at your own brain, add the shared folders, install the skill, and run it. This is the part the skill does for you.
8.Create your project on your own brain, then add the shared folders
One project ends up connected to two places: your own private brain, and the shared folders. Do it in this order.
a. Create the project on your own brain first. In Cowork: new project → Use an existing folder → point it at your own private location from step 4. This is the home base, the part your AI writes to freely.
b. Then add the shared folders to that same project. Add the three your founder shared with you: the Team layer, the Leaders layer, and the shared workspace. Now the one project is connected to both your own brain and the shared folders.
c. Drop your unzipped export inside your private-brain folder (not a shared folder), so the migration reads only your own history.
Where the folders live doesn't matter. Cowork can connect a folder on your own computer and folders synced from a shared Google Drive or OneDrive in the same project. Local or cloud, your account or the founder's, it works the same.
9.Download the Team Brain Migrate skill
Download the skill file. It's a single .skill file. You install it next.
↓Team Brain Migrate skill v1.010.Install the skill in Cowork
Upload the .skill file: Customise → Skills → + → Create a skill → Upload a skill, then choose your .skill file. On a Team plan, if Skills are restricted, your Primary Owner enables them first, then you refresh.
11.Run the migration
Start a new conversation in your project and run the command below. Type it, don't paste it: type /, start typing team-brain-migrate, pick it from the list, then send.
/team-brain-migrateWhat's about to happen
- It asks a few quick questions: your name, your role (senior leader), your account, your machine, and confirms you're migrating your history.
- It checks what you can actually touch (read the Team layer, edit the Leaders layer, write the shared workspace) before it writes anything.
- It reads your export and builds your private brain from your real history: how you work, what you do, your preferences. This stays private to you.
- It writes your navigator so your AI knows the rules, then runs a short working-style capture.
12.Answer the questions and let it verify your access
Answer in your own words or tap the buttons. It then confirms your real access to each folder before writing, so nothing is assumed. If a folder is missing, it tells you to ask your founder to finish sharing, then you resume.
13.It mines your history and captures how you work
The skill reads your export and builds your private brain: your working style, the work you do, the questions you repeat, your preferences. Then it runs a short working-style capture. All of this lands in your private brain only. Nothing from your history is pushed to the shared business brain.
14.It writes your navigator
The skill writes your CLAUDE.md so your AI knows exactly what it can do: read the Team layer for context, edit the Leaders layer (saving a snapshot first), put business deliverables in the shared workspace, and keep your personal work in your private brain.
Finish and check
Read the privacy note, run a quick test, and set your brain as your default project.
15.Read your privacy note
The skill leaves you a short, honest privacy note. The short version: your private brain is only as private as the account it sits in. In your own personal account, your founder genuinely can't see it. In a company work account, an admin technically can, so treat it as company-visible. Your mined history lives only in your account.
16.Check it worked Quick three-point test
Ask your AI to do three things. Read test: read one file from the Team layer. Edit test: make a tiny edit to a Leaders-layer file (it should snapshot a copy to _archive first). Work test: write a throwaway note into the shared workspace. If any fail, it's almost always a sharing or sync issue, not a brain issue.
17.Pin it and star it, so it's always there Do it once
Two quick things in Cowork so you never hunt for it:
Pin this project to the side menu, so it's one click to find.
Star your brain folder, so it mounts by default on every new chat, with your brain and the shared context already loaded.
Keep enriching your private brain
The migration captures how you work today. Over time you build up far more useful context in your chats. Run this enrichment sweep whenever you like. It mines your history and tops up your private brain, so your AI keeps pace with how you actually work. It only ever adds to your own private brain, never the shared team brain.
↓Private Brain Enrichment prompt v1.0How to run it
- Open the project you migrated in (the one that can see your chat history), or any Claude project with your history connected.
- Start a new chat, paste the prompt, and send.
- It hands back one file. Save it into your private brain folder. That's it.
What you can touch, at a glance.
| Folder | You can |
|---|---|
| Team layer (the business's working brain) | Read only |
| Leaders layer (strategy, goals, decisions) | Edit (snapshot first) |
| The shared workspace (deliverables) | Write |
| Your private brain (your account) | Yours |
| The founder's private layer | No access |