~5 min read

Your vault is a folder of markdown files in a GitHub repo you own. Lore is the interface. Claude and Cursor are your AI teammates with full vault access.

Every note is a file. Every save is a commit. Nothing is locked in.

Think of it this way:

  • Your vault is your brain’s external memory
  • Daily notes are your scratch pad
  • Project notes are your working documents
  • Inbox is where everything lands before you organize it
  • [[Wiki links]] are how ideas connect

You don’t need to be organized to start. Drop things in inbox/ and link them later.

The daily workflow

This is how Ryan starts every day — practical, first-person, no ceremony.

Step 1

Open your daily note

Press ⌘D anywhere in the app.

Today’s note opens at daily/YYYY/YYYY-MM-DD.md. If it doesn’t exist yet, Lore creates it from your daily template automatically.

Your daily note has three sections:

  • ## Today — what you’re working on
  • ## Decisions — things you decided
  • ## Log — append-only running log (Claude writes here too)

You don’t need to fill them all. Open it, jot what’s on your mind, move on.

daily/2026/2026-07-30.md commit a1b2c3d
---
title: 2026-07-30
tags: [daily]
date: 2026-07-30
---
Wednesday, July 30 2026
Today
  • Finish Lore onboarding page
  • Review Steak Market launch timeline
  • Call with Gio re: pricing
Decisions
  • Using /how-to-use as primary user education, not onboarding wizard
Log
  • 09:14 Shipped MCP fix, all tools live
  • 11:30 ai: appended by Claude — steakmarket cart UX decision saved
Step 2

Save anything, instantly

The fastest way to save something to your vault:

In Claude: Just say “save this to my vault” or “add this to today’s daily note.” Claude uses the Lore MCP to write it directly. No copy-paste.

In Cursor: Same — Cursor has vault access. Ask it to create or update a note.

In the Lore app:

  • ⌘N → type a title → note is created and open in the editor
  • ⌘S saves immediately. Autosave triggers after ~3 seconds of inactivity
  • Status bar shows: Typing → Saving… → ✓ Committed
Tip: Everything that matters should eventually be in the vault. If you’re not sure where something goes: inbox/.
Step 3

Link your notes with [[wiki links]]

Type [[ anywhere in the editor. A suggestion list appears. Select a note → it becomes [[Note Title]].

Why this matters:

  • [[Steakmarket]] in a client note connects it to your project note
  • [[2026-07-30]] in a project note connects to your daily log
  • Over time, your vault becomes a web of connected ideas — not a pile of files

Backlinks: At the bottom of every note, Lore shows “N notes link here.” That’s how you discover connections you didn’t plan.

Unresolved links (dashed underline): [[Some Note That Doesn't Exist Yet]] is a clickable placeholder. Click it to create the note. That’s how the vault grows naturally.

Step 4

Find anything with search

⌘⇧F — global search. ⌘K — command palette (fuzzy note finder).

Search is full-text across all your notes, ranked by relevance, with snippets. It’s fast (under 200ms) because the index lives in D1, not GitHub.

  • Search for a client name to find all notes mentioning them
  • Search for a decision keyword to find where you logged it
  • Search for a date if you remember roughly when something happened
Step 5

Use Claude as your vault partner

This is what makes Lore different from every other note app. Claude has direct read and write access via MCP. You don’t copy-paste notes into Claude — Claude already knows what’s there.

Things you can say right now:

  • “Search my vault for everything about steakmarket”
  • “What did I decide about the WebChange pricing?”
  • “Create a project note for AirNegri with what we just discussed”
  • “Add to my daily note: decided to launch RevCalc DRY_RUN next week”
  • “Summarize everything I know about Gio”
  • “What are all my open client projects?”
Audit trail: MCP writes show up in git as ai: projects/airnegri.md — so you always know what Claude wrote vs. what you wrote.
Step 6

Organize as you go (not upfront)

You don’t need a perfect folder structure before you start. Start with these four folders. That’s it.

  • inbox/ — everything you’re not sure about
  • daily/ — auto-managed by Lore (⌘D)
  • projects/ — one note per active project
  • clients/ or laicos/ — one note per client / ops area

Rules: drop everything in inbox/ first if you’re unsure. Move it when it matters. Prefer [[links]] and #tags over deep nesting. Let backlinks show you what’s connected.

The goal is not a perfect system. The goal is that when you need something, you can find it in under 10 seconds.

Step 7

Tags

Add tags in frontmatter:

tags: [client, active, cabo]

Or inline in the note body: #client #active #cabo

Browse tags via the command palette. Click a tag in search results, or ask Claude.

Start small:

  • Status: #active #draft #delivered #resolved #archived
  • Type: #client #project #daily #reference #decision #postmortem
  • Context: #laicos #personal #cabo #infrastructure

Keyboard reference

Every shortcut worth knowing.

⌘K Command palette — do anything
⌘⇧F Global search
⌘D Today’s daily note
⌘N New note
⌘S Save now
⌘E Toggle editor / preview / split
? Show all shortcuts
Esc Close palette or panel
↑↓ Navigate tree
←→ Collapse / expand folder

Things to do in your first week

Check them off as you go — progress saves in this browser.

Open the app →

~10 min setup

What you’re setting up

Lore has three pieces. Total setup time: about 10 minutes.

1. Your vault (a private GitHub repo)

Where your notes live — plain markdown files. You own it. Lore reads and writes via the GitHub API.

2. The Lore app (lore.laicos.com)

Editor, search, daily notes, backlinks. Hosted by Laicos. No setup required.

3. The MCP server (lore-mcp.laicos.com)

Gives Claude and Cursor direct vault access. Hosted by Laicos. Connect once, then forget it.

Open the setup wizard →
Step 1

Create your vault repo on GitHub

  1. Go to github.com → New repository
  2. Name it vault (or anything — it’s just a folder)
  3. Set it to Private
  4. Initialize with a README
  5. Click Create repository

That’s your vault. Don’t put anything in it yet.

Create a new GitHub repo →

Step 2

Generate a GitHub access token

Lore needs permission to read and write files in your vault.

  1. GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → Fine-grained personal access tokens → Generate new token
  2. Token name: Lore vault access
  3. Resource owner: your username
  4. Repository access: Only select repositories → your vault repo
  5. Permissions: Contents: Read and write, Webhooks: Read and write, Metadata: Read-only
  6. Generate token — copy it immediately (github_pat_…)
Keep it private. It only has access to your vault repo — still don’t paste it into chats or commits.

Generate a fine-grained PAT →

Step 3

Connect your vault in Lore

Go to lore.laicos.com/setup and enter:

  • Your GitHub repo: username/vault
  • Your access token: github_pat_…

Click Connect repo. Lore will verify access, create .lore/ config + templates, scaffold inbox/, daily/, projects/, personal/, and run the first index (~10 seconds).

When you see ✓ Connected — setup core is done.

Step 4

Connect Claude

Same flow as Laicos MCP — OAuth with a password. No Client ID / Secret headers.

  1. Open Claude.ai → Settings → Connectors
  2. Add custom connector
  3. Name: Lore
  4. URL: https://lore-mcp.laicos.com/mcp
  5. Leave OAuth Client ID and Client Secret empty
  6. Save → Claude opens the Lore authorize page
  7. Password: laicos123 → Approve
https://lore-mcp.laicos.com/mcp
Test: Ask Claude “search my Lore vault for anything.” You should get a response that mentions your notes.
Step 5

Connect Cursor

Open or create ~/.cursor/mcp.json. Merge this block (don’t overwrite other servers):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lore": {
      "url": "https://lore-mcp.laicos.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

Get YOUR_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN from the person who hosts Lore (or from Worker secret MCP_BEARER_TOKEN). Save → restart Cursor → Settings → MCP should show lore with a green dot.

Lore · markdown is the database · git is version control · AI is the interface