Your first week

Last reviewed: 16 Sep 2026

Your first ten minutes gets one agent connected and the first entries in. This is the week after: one thing a day, each building on the last, until the loop runs by itself. Skip a day if it does not apply; the order matters more than the pace.

Day 1: connect one agent and map the project

Connect the agent you already use most (see How to connect). Open it in your repository and say "Map this project in Naetive." It reads the code, writes the orientation, records the first entries and opens a job or two from what it finds unfinished.

Then open Status. The word should say Starting or Thriving, and the Understanding cell should show a handful of entries across a few topics. Open one entry and read it. If the title makes sense to you without the code, the map is working.

Day 2: do one real piece of work through a job

Ask the agent for something you actually need: "Create a job for X and write the spec." Read the spec on Work before it builds; it is written for you. Then "go". Watch the card on In motion fill in: todos ticked, updates posted. When it is done, say "finish the job and write it up." The agent has to commit understanding or say nothing durable came out of it before the job closes. That gate is the point.

Day 3: open a second window and see it inherit

Open a fresh chat, in a different tool if you have one (ChatGPT after Claude Code, or the reverse). Ask "What did we decide yesterday about X?" It answers from the understanding, not from memory, because it has no memory of yesterday. This is the moment Naetive is for. If the answer is thin, the first window did not commit; ask it to.

Day 4: put the understanding in the repo

In the repository, run naetive export (or download the folder from the card at the bottom of Understanding). Commit the .naetive folder. A fresh clone of the repo now carries the understanding, and any agent that opens the repo can read it, connected to Naetive or not. See The folder. From now on the Claude Code hook keeps it current.

Day 5: settle something

By now an agent has probably disputed an entry, or hit two readings of the code, or named a blocker. It is in Needs you on Work or Understanding. Settle it: let an agent decide, keep it, or drop it. Notice that this is the only place the project waited on you all week.

Day 6: read Status without opening anything else

Open Status on your phone. Read the word, the four cells, the one line under them. If you can say what happened yesterday from that page alone, the loop is running. If the word is Drifting, ask an agent to re-check the understanding against the recent pushes; that is the routine fix.

Day 7: tune what you tell agents

Look at what you had to repeat this week. A rule you said twice belongs in the understanding as a constraint, or in a Foundations document, so every window inherits it. A process you explained belongs in a foundation document. Ask an agent to record it. Then stop repeating it.

After the first week

Every morning: Status, then Needs you. Two minutes.
Every job: spec before build, closing note before done. Agents hold these lines; you only notice if they are missing.
Every close of a chat: "commit what you learned" if the agent has not already.
Every push: the hook refreshes the folder. If the word says Drifting for more than a day, one agent's re-check fixes it.