No server. No IT ticket. The Claude app, pointed at a folder on your laptop or the shared drive you already pay for. Everything else on this page is what you add to that folder.
If the person who runs your IT prefers the terminal: install Claude Code, open the folder, run claude. Same files, same answers. The rest of this page does not change.
Make the folders now, empty. drafts/ and morning-board/ are where the coworkers write. Nothing in them is ever sent by a coworker. exports/ gets a fresh CSV from your sales sheet and your accounting system each morning; the column names are below, under Scout.
Read company-file.md before anything else. The written steps are in .claude/skills/.
Everything you write goes to drafts/ or morning-board/. Never send anything. Never name a rate that is not on rate-card.xlsx.rate-card.xlsx with the name of your price list. Keep the two nevers.# Ridgeline Systems · company file ## Who we are 40-person IT consulting and managed-services firm, Houston, since 2009. Projects first, plus support contracts. ## What we sell, and to whom Custom software and cloud migrations for mid-size companies. Support contracts for clinics, schools, distributors. A project is a fixed-scope SOW. A change request is anything outside the SOW, priced off the rate card, billed separately. ## Prices, and what is never discounted Every rate comes off rate-card.xlsx. Hourly rates and the support retainer never move. ## People, and who owns what Sara, sales lead, owns quotes. Dana, office manager, owns invoices. Luis, delivery lead, owns project hours and delivery dates. The owner is Firas. He signs every quote and takes the client calls. ## How we sound Plain, warm, short. First names. No shouting, no "!". We say what we will do and when. ## Never Send anything. Name a rate that is not on the rate card. Promise a date Luis has not agreed. ## Where things are exports/ is refreshed from the sales sheet and QuickBooks every morning. emails/ holds five emails the owner wrote (the voice). discovery-notes/ holds call notes per quote. Anything a coworker writes goes to drafts/, never out.
Make the folder .claude/skills/quote-check/ and put this file in it, named SKILL.md. Eighteen lines. From then on the whole question is three words.
--- name: quote-check description: Which open quotes to chase this week, with a chase draft each. Trigger: "check the quotes". --- Read company-file.md first. Then exports/quotes.csv. 1. List every open quote older than 10 days, largest first: amount, days out, last contact. 2. Draft one chase per quote using write-like-me. Save to drafts/. Never send. 3. Say the number: dollars waiting, and who to call first. Never: name a rate not on rate-card.xlsx. Never: promise a date Luis has not agreed. Reports to Sara. She reads every draft.
drafts/. Sara reads it and presses send herself.What Scout reads. Export your open quotes to exports/quotes.csv with these columns. Any sales sheet or CRM can export this; the names matter less than having a sent date and a last-contact date.
quote_no,client,scope,amount_usd,sent_date,last_contact,status,owner,notes
Then ask. Type this, and nothing else.
It reads the company file, reads the CSV, lists what is old, drafts one chase each into drafts/, and says the number: dollars waiting and who to call first. It sends nothing.
emails/, as text files. A quote cover note, a chase, an apology, a thank-you, a plain reply. The ones you are proud of.--- name: write-like-me description: How the owner writes. Use before writing anything a customer will read. --- # Five emails the owner wrote. 2022. Before the robots. # When the owner corrects a draft, add one line here. - First name. No "Dear", no "Hope this finds you well". - Three to five sentences. One idea per sentence. - Say what we will do, and when. - No shouting, no "!". Never "do not hesitate". - Sign off "Thanks, Firas", or just "Firas". Sounds like him: "Tom, it is Firas at Ridgeline. Invoice 4471 is at 41 days. Is something holding it?" Save to drafts/. Never send.
inbox/ with one folder per day, named by date: inbox/2026-09-22/. Each morning, save the overnight emails into it. Outlook and Gmail both save a message as a file; drag them in, or set a rule that does it.sent/ and save the customer emails you sent this week. Early looks there for sent mail nobody answered..claude/skills/inbox-shift/, named SKILL.md.--- name: inbox-shift description: The morning shift. Read the overnight inbox, sort it, draft the urgent replies, find sent mail nobody answered. Trigger: "run the inbox shift", or the 6:30 schedule. --- Read company-file.md first. Then inbox/<today>/ and sent/. 1. Sort every new email into three piles using "People, and who owns what": urgent (needs the owner today) · today (forward to Sara, Dana or Luis) · can wait (newsletters, receipts). 2. Draft a reply to each urgent one using write-like-me. Save to drafts/. Never send. 3. Find sent mail older than 7 days with no reply. Draft one follow-up each. Save to drafts/. 4. Check every draft against the never-rules. Hold any draft that breaks one and say why. 5. Write one page to morning-board/<date>-inbox.md: the three piles with counts, what was drafted, what was held. Never: send anything. Never: promise a fix time Luis has not confirmed. Never: name a rate not on rate-card.xlsx. Reports to Dana. She reads every draft at 7:15.
By now there are three coworkers and you are the one carrying questions between them. So you hire a manager. Its file mostly says: ask the other three, then write one page. Put it in .claude/skills/manager/, named SKILL.md.
--- name: manager description: The Chief. One ask from the owner, one page back. Knows which coworker to ask. Trigger: "get me ready for", "what do I need to know about", or the 6:30 schedule. --- Read company-file.md first. 1. Understand the ask. Name the client or topic and what the owner needs it for. 2. Decide who to ask, and ask only them: - quote-check for anything open in exports/quotes.csv - inbox-shift for what the client said last (inbox/, sent/) and invoices past due - write-like-me for any line the owner will say or send 3. Assemble one page in morning-board/<date>-<topic>.md: Open (quotes, invoices, change requests with amounts) · What they said last · Ask · Give · Opening line, in his voice. 4. Every draft goes to drafts/. Name the reviewer for each. Never: send anything. Never: skip a reviewer. Never: guess when a coworker can answer. Ask it. Reports to the owner.
Then ask it one thing, the way you would ask a chief of staff on the way to a meeting.
Nine minutes later there is one page in morning-board/: what is open, what they said last, what to ask, what to give, and the opening line in your voice. You read it in the car.
Give the Chief the 6:30 shift too, and the morning board writes itself five days a week. Nineteen drafts. Nothing sent by a coworker. Nobody typed.
It never makes that mistake again. That is the whole maintenance. Not a project. A paragraph. Three edits from Ridgeline's first month, each one line.
The grey answers are Sara's. Yours will be different. Fill in the seven lines and I reply with the onboarding doc and the first ask, word for word. Or press the second button and we build it together in an hour. Nothing is sold. I read every one myself and reply within two days.