A short preface: who is writing, why I built an AI operating system, and why I publish its history.
I have spent a long career in IT, designing operating models and running transformations where systems and organisations meet. Since October 2025 I do that independently, with my own small company.
In February 2026 I turned the same craft on my own working life, with an AI assistant as my main collaborator. Tidying up four inboxes grew into notes, scripts, three machines, about a hundred scheduled jobs and an assistant working across all of it — what people call an AI operating system, or AI OS.
Why I built it
I wrote about the purpose earlier this year, in The Intentional Living Engine: I do well with structure and rhythm, less well on willpower alone, and the system keeps what I care about in view. This series is about the machinery underneath — how it was built, who built which part, and what broke.
Why I write about it
Three reasons.
I learnt the basics from people who showed their own setups, Tiago Forte and Nick Milo more than most. This returns the favour.
Building with an AI is new for almost everyone; the useful lessons lie in details that product announcements leave out: what went wrong, whose mistake it was, what finally held.
And writing is how I think: twelve posts about eight months of building make me say what I actually learnt.
How it is written
Every story comes from my dated notes, my daily journal and the commit history. Where the AI made the mistake, the post says so; where I made it, too.
For privacy and security reasons the focus is on the software, the technology, the patterns and what I learnt. Host names are changed.*
What to expect
Twelve posts after this one, the first on 19 October, then one every three days until 21 November. The English posts also appear on my family blog, where the German edition is published at the same time. Each tells one part of the story, names its pattern, shows how that part runs today and ends with tips for builders.
If you are building your own, tell me how — at martin@bilboconsult.com or on LinkedIn.
The first story starts with four inboxes.
How the posts are made: I go through my own record with Claude’s help, Claude drafts, and I review and rework every post before it goes out. I am the accountable author of everything I publish.
* Host names are changed (the stand-ins are Falcon, Yavin, Bespin and Dagobah). The real ones come from a different saga.