What is HQ?

Illustrative session · your HQ, your projects, your numbers

HQ in three sentences#

HQ is a folder on your computer where an AI assistant does real work for you (writing reports, organizing projects, building things) instead of just chatting. Unlike a chatbot that forgets everything the moment you close the window, HQ remembers who you are, what you're working on, and everything it has learned, so it gets more useful every single day. You give it work in plain language, and it plans the work, does the work, checks the work, and hands you a finished result you can share.

That's the whole idea. Everything else in HQ is in service of those three sentences.

What that looks like for you#

HQ serves three kinds of people. Find yourself below.

If you're an Operator (you run things, you don't live in a terminal)

HQ is the assistant that finally keeps up. That weekly report you rebuild by hand? Describe it once, and HQ turns it into a repeatable project that ends in a polished, shareable web page. The pile of ideas in your notes app? Capture each one with a single command (the short instructions you type, like /idea or /prd), and HQ keeps them on a board and helps you turn the best ones into finished work. You never write code, and you never need to.

If you're a Builder (you're technical, you're comfortable with git)

HQ is a harness around Claude Code that adds the things raw AI coding lacks: persistent memory, per-client isolation, planning discipline, and verification. You point it at a codebase with /discover and it learns the repo. You plan work as a PRD (a project spec broken into small, verifiable stories) and execute it story by story with tests and lint acting as guardrails. Fresh context per task, back pressure on every commit. The Ralph Loop (HQ's plan → execute → verify → commit cycle) running against your real repos.

If you're a Champion (you're rolling HQ out to a team)

HQ is how one person's breakthrough becomes everyone's baseline. Each business or team gets its own company in HQ, an isolated workspace whose knowledge, credentials, and projects never leak into another. When someone on your team builds a useful skill (a packaged, reusable workflow) or captures a hard-won lesson, sync (HQ's cloud service that keeps teammates' folders in step) distributes it to the whole team. You invite people with /onboard, and the team compounds instead of starting from zero individually. See team-rollout.md.

What HQ is NOT#

• Not a chatbot. You don't have long meandering conversations with HQ. You give it a job, it does the job, and you start fresh for the next one. Short, focused sessions (one sitting of work with the AI) are the whole method.
• Not a replacement for Slack or email. The HQ app has direct messages and project channels for working with teammates and bots on HQ work, and it can produce things you share in Slack or email. Your team chat stays your team chat.
• Not cloud-required. HQ runs entirely on your computer. HQ Cloud (sync, sharing, team features) is optional and you can add it later. Solo, offline HQ is fully supported.
• Not autopilot. HQ does the work, but you set the direction, answer its questions, and approve what ships. It's a tireless staff, not a mystery box.

A week with HQ, in five lines#

1. Monday: You run /setup once, answer a few questions about who you are and what's painful in your work, and HQ scaffolds your workspace around your actual life.
2. Tuesday: You describe a messy recurring task in plain English with /prd; HQ turns it into a small project with clear "done" criteria, executes it, and /deploy hands you a link you drop in Slack.
3. Wednesday: Ideas strike in a meeting: you fire off two /idea commands and they're safely on your board instead of a sticky note.
4. Thursday: You start with /startwork (HQ reads yesterday's handoff, the saved state from your last session, and shows you where you left off), knock out the next project story, and close with /handoff.
5. Friday: You notice HQ already knows things you taught it on Monday. That's the point: every session makes the next one smarter.

Common questions#

If you get stuck#

If "what do I actually do with this?" is your sticking point, go straight to your-first-win.md. It walks you through shipping something real in under an hour. Ready to install? Start with install-macos.md or install-windows.md.