davekilleen-dex

Dex by Dave — Your AI Chief of Staff

A personal operating system for your work. Strategic work management, meeting intelligence, relationship tracking, daily planning — all configured for your specific role. Claude Code remains the full-experience reference; the unreleased portability build adds native, capability-aware packages for more agent harnesses without pretending every host is identical. No coding required.

The story behind Dex: 🎥 Malleable Software — when everyone can build, what makes a great product? (Dave's keynote on the thinking behind Dex) · 🎙️ Episode 8 of The Vibe PM Podcast (full walkthrough) · ✍️ the original launch post · 💬 the honest highs-and-lows of building it — the pause, the unlock, and 52 releases in two weeks

🖥️ Prefer never to see a terminal? Dex desktop and mobile apps are on the way — sign up for early access at heydex.ai/beta.

📖 New here? Start with the Dex Guide →

A plain-English walkthrough from install to making Dex your own, with copy-paste prompts throughout — written for non-technical professionals, no coding background assumed. The README below covers the same ground in reference form. (AI agents: llms.txt.)

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Setup Overview

Total time: ~10 minutes. One pasted line installs everything, then you tell Dex your role.

Pick one of these to get started:

Option	Cost	What It Is	Dex tier
Cursor	Free tier works, or $20/month for Pro	An app with a built-in AI assistant. No separate Claude account needed.	Tier 2 Skills — vault, tools, and named journeys
Claude Code Desktop	Claude Pro $20/month	Anthropic's own app. The full Dex experience — hooks, automatic context, self-learning.	Tier 3 Full — the reference implementation
Claude Code Terminal	Claude Pro $20/month	Same as Desktop but runs in Terminal (Mac) or PowerShell (Windows).	Tier 3 Full

You do NOT go to claude.ai and type commands. You need one of the apps above. Cursor is the easiest starting point. Claude Code (Desktop or Terminal) gives you a better experience with self-learning hooks — setup instructions for those are further down this page.

Not sure which? Start with Cursor — it's free and gets you running in minutes. You can add Claude Code later if you want the automatic behaviors.

What you get with each assistant

Dex is the vault and the tools. The app you talk to is a harness. What you get depends on which harness you use — that is a documented contract, not a silent subset.

Tier	Name	What you get	Who it's for
Tier 0 Vault	Your notes	Markdown folders (inbox, projects, people, tasks). Dex is just files.	Any editor. No AI required.
Tier 1 Core	Tools + background jobs	Tasks, people index, meeting sync, search, and portable context/gate payloads.	Any assistant that can run Dex's MCP tools
Tier 2 Skills	Named journeys	/daily-plan, /process-meetings, and the rest of the skill surface, generated into .agents/.	Any assistant that reads Agent Skills
Tier 3 Full	Automatic in-chat behavior	Person context when you open a file, safety gates, session learning, and the mid-session health pulse.	Claude Code today — the reference implementation

Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, and other Agent Skills harnesses are Tier 2. The vault is always Tier 0. Cursor, ChatGPT, and Codex should call boot_today at session start and get_person_context when a person is mentioned. check_safety_gate is an advisory MCP check; only a verified pre-tool interceptor can enforce a refusal. The longer split is in docs/architecture/HARNESS-CAPABILITY.md and docs/architecture/HOOK-INVENTORY.md.

Unreleased portability preview: this branch contains one portable plugin package for Codex CLI/desktop, ChatGPT desktop, Claude Code/Cowork, Copilot CLI, and compatible Agent Plugin clients; a native BB plugin is built separately; and Pi keeps its native extension. The package shares Dex's read-only session context, person context, and safety decision code. It has not been merged, published, submitted to a marketplace, or released. Codex IDE extensions do not currently load plugins, and ChatGPT web/Cowork connectors need a separately secured public endpoint before they can reach a local vault. The developer-preview journeys and exact boundaries are in docs/HARNESS-PORTABILITY.md.

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Quick Install (Recommended)

One pasted line checks your computer, installs anything missing (asking first), downloads Dex to Documents/Dex, and sets everything up. Safe to run more than once.

Mac — press Cmd+Space, type "Terminal", press Enter, then paste this and press Enter:

curl -fsSL https://heydex.ai/install.sh | bash

Windows — open the Start menu, type "PowerShell", press Enter, then paste this and press Enter:

irm https://heydex.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Or let your AI do the whole thing. If you already use Claude, ChatGPT, or another AI assistant that can run things on your computer, just tell it:

Install Dex on my computer. Follow the instructions at https://heydex.ai/install.md and walk me through anything you can't do yourself.

When the installer finishes, open the Dex folder in Cursor or Claude Code, say "hi", and Dex introduces itself and sets itself up around your role. Full details and troubleshooting: heydex.ai/install.

If anything goes wrong: nothing on your computer is changed half-way — copy the error message, paste it to your AI assistant, and it can tell you exactly what to do. Or follow the step-by-step path below instead.

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Manual Setup (Step-by-Step Alternative)

Prefer to see every step, or the quick install hit a snag? This section does the same thing by hand.

What You'll Need to Install (One-Time)

1. Cursor - Download and install (free account works fine)
2. Git - Required for setup and updates
   • Mac: Installs automatically when needed (you'll see a prompt)
   • Windows: Download from git-scm.com/download/win
3. Node.js - Download the "LTS" version and install (this enables the system's automation features)
4. Python 3.10+ - Download and install (required for MCP servers and task sync)
   • Minimum version: Python 3.10 or newer
   • Windows users: ⚠️ During installation, check the box "Add Python to PATH" - this is critical
   • Mac users with old Python: If you have Python 3.9 or older, download fresh from python.org

All installers walk you through setup with default options.

Why Python 3.10+? The MCP SDK (Model Context Protocol) requires Python 3.10 or newer. This powers the Work MCP server that enables task sync - when you check off a task in a meeting note, it updates everywhere automatically (person pages, project files, Tasks.md).

Mac users: If this is your first time using command-line tools, macOS will prompt you to install "Command Line Developer Tools" during setup. Click Install when prompted - it's safe and required. Takes 2-3 minutes.

About the Command Line

You'll use something called a "command line" (or "Terminal" on Mac, "PowerShell" on Windows) during setup. This is a text-based way to give your computer instructions - think of it as typing commands instead of clicking buttons.

Don't worry if this feels unfamiliar. You'll copy and paste a few commands, press Enter, and you're done. Takes less than 2 minutes.

Check Your Setup (Optional)

Want to verify everything's ready? Open your command line:

• Mac: Press Cmd+Space, type "Terminal", press Enter
• Windows: Press Win+R, type "powershell", press Enter

Copy and paste this line exactly as you see it, then press Enter:

git --version

You should see a response like: git version 2.x.x (any version number is fine)

If you see "command not found": Download Git from git-scm.com, install it, then close and reopen your command line and try again.

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Now copy and paste this line, then press Enter:

node --version

You should see a response like: v18.x.x or v20.x.x (must be version 18 or higher)

If you see "command not found": Download Node.js from nodejs.org, install it, then close and reopen your command line and try again.

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Finally, check Python:

python3 --version

Windows users: Try python --version if python3 doesn't work.

You should see a response like: Python 3.10.x or higher (3.11, 3.12, etc.)

If you see Python 3.9 or older: The MCP SDK requires Python 3.10+. Download and install a newer version:

• Mac/Windows: Download from python.org (get the latest stable version)
• After installing, restart your terminal and check the version again

If you see "command not found":

• Windows: Python likely isn't in your PATH. Reinstall from python.org and check "Add Python to PATH" during installation. Restart your terminal after.
• Mac: Download Python from python.org, install it, then restart your terminal.

Why Python 3.10+ matters: It powers the MCP servers that sync tasks everywhere. Check off a task in a meeting note → it updates in your Tasks.md, person pages, and project files automatically. Python 3.9 and older won't work - you need 3.10 or newer.

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That's the technical heavy lifting done. If you got through that, the rest is straightforward - just clicking buttons and answering questions.

Step 1: Get the Code into Cursor

1. Open Cursor
2. Press Cmd+Shift+P (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+P (Windows) - this opens a search bar at the top
3. Type "Git: Clone" and press Enter
4. Paste this URL and press Enter:

   https://github.com/davekilleen/dex.git
   

5. Choose where to save it (your Documents folder works great)
6. Click Open when Cursor asks if you want to open the folder

Can't get this working? No problem:

1. Go to github.com/davekilleen/dex
2. Click the green Code button → Download ZIP
3. Unzip to your Documents folder (the folder will be named dex-main)
4. In Cursor: File → Open Folder → select that dex-main folder

Step 2: Run the Installer