Claude Code, Second-Brain Explorations
Second Brian Part 3: Tips and tricks to get your Claude Code based, second-brain humming like magic.
In Part 1 I showed how to set up a second brain with Claude Code — the folders, the markdown files, the commands.
Part 2 added a persistent knowledge graph so Claude can remember relationships across sessions.
But how does Claude actually do stuff beyond reading and writing local files? That’s what this one’s about - discovering new things this system can do.
What I’m actually running
My setup started with three core MCP servers and has grown from there.
Fetch is the workhorse — it’s how Claude reads the internet. When I ask it to gather news from my sources, fetch is doing the actual HTTP requests. This is basic, so basic in fact, I believe new versions of Claude Code run Fetch automatically. Memory is the knowledge graph from Part 2, storing all the companies I’m tracking, goals I’m pursuing, and how they connect. Notion handles the sync between my local markdown files and the cloud, so I can write at my desk and read on my phone.
Those three form the foundation. But I’ve added more as needs emerged. GitHub lets Claude interact with repos — checking issues, creating branches, and crucially, version controlling my entire second brain. Time tells Claude what the current date is (LLMs genuinely don’t know unless you tell them). Git handles local version control. Sequential-thinking helps with complex multi-step reasoning.
I keep finding new things these can do. That’s become the pattern — add an MCP for one reason, discover three other uses for it.
How knowledge actually flows
Basic
In the morning, I type /gather and Claude sweeps through my sources — about 25 daily URLs and 15 weekly ones. News sites, AI blogs, tech newsletters, job boards, NYC events. It fetches each page, extracts what matters, checks yesterday’s brief to avoid repeats. If something connects to my knowledge graph — a company I’m tracking, a subject I care about — Claude flags it. The output lands in a markdown file, a hook syncs it to Notion, and by the time I finish coffee it’s readable on my phone.
Summary as home base
There is a /summary command that gives me an overview of everything — active goals, what’s happening with each one, what I should probably focus on next. It’s where conversations start.
Like all commands, they work as a discreet input or just ask Claude to do it in conversation language.
I’ll run /summary, see that I haven’t touched the website in a few days, and that becomes a thread. ”How should I improve my website?” ”What’s the status of my Tuesday meeting?” The summary surfaces what matters, and then we dig in.
The source list as interface
If summary is where I look inward, the source list is where I look outward. It’s a simple markdown file — just URLs organized by frequency and topic — but it’s become the most important config in the whole system.
The source list is how the outside world meets my personal system. When I’m job hunting, I add job boards and company career pages. When I’m writing about AI, I add research blogs and news sites. When I want to stay connected to my city, I add NYC event calendars. The sources I choose shape what knowledge flows in.
There are daily, weekly, and monthly summaries that all vary slightly.
What makes it powerful is that the same infrastructure serves completely different goals. Job search and newsletter writing feel like different activities, but they both need external information filtered through my priorities. The source list is where I decide what information matters to me right now. Everything else — the gathering, the filtering, the connecting to my knowledge graph — happens automatically once I’ve made that choice.
I update it constantly. New goal? New sources. Goal finished? Remove them or move them to weekly. It’s a living document that reflects what I’m focused on.
Remote access with Github, Zed and Tailscale
I wanted to access my second brain from anywhere, not just my home machine.
The solution: My whole second brain is a git repo. Every file, every change, version controlled. Tailscale connects my devices on a private network, and Zed can remote into my home machine over that connection. So I can be at a coffee shop, SSH into my home setup, and have Claude Code running with all my MCPs and files exactly as if I were there. It’s not just file access — it’s the whole environment. Same MCPs, same hooks, same knowledge graph. My second brain travels with me.
Notion
Throughout the day, things accumulate in my inbox. Files I drop in, ideas I capture on mobile, links I want to save. /process handles it — first pulling anything I added via Notion, then categorizing each item based on content and knowledge graph relationships. If I’m saving something about Anthropic, Claude knows it connects to MCP, connects to projects I’m building. Things get filed by relationships, not just keywords.
And continuously, anything I write in my outputs folder syncs to Notion automatically. I keep my article drafts, image work, summaries, and daily briefs all in Notion, in a folder system that matches my master project. I edit locally, save, and within seconds it’s readable anywhere.
Why Notion specifically
Notion won because of mobile capture — I can drop an idea into my inbox from my phone in about five seconds, and that matters more than any feature list. The reading experience is better too. Markdown is great for writing but kind of ugly for reading, and Notion renders things nicely with proper formatting and clean typography. And when I want to share something, I already have a link. No exporting, no converting, no friction.
Tips I keep discovering
Here’s where this gets fun. Every week I find something new this setup can do.
Luma calendar integration
I kept missing interesting NYC events. AI meetups, tech talks, things I’d want to know about.
I added Luma calendar URLs to my sources file, and now /gather pulls upcoming events from calendars I follow. Relevant ones show up in my daily brief, flagged by topic. If there’s an AI event this week, I know about it.
This was a ten-minute addition — just URLs in a config file — but it changed how connected I feel to what’s happening locally.
Notion reminders without Google Calendar
I wanted Claude to set reminders for me. ”Follow up with this person Tuesday.” ”Check if that application moved forward.”
The obvious answer is Google Calendar, but there’s no official MCP for it. The workaround: a Notion database for reminders. Claude creates entries with dates via the Notion API, Notion’s calendar view shows them, and I connected the database to Notion Calendar on my phone for notifications.
It’s not as clean as a native calendar integration, but it works. Claude can now say ”I’ll remind you Friday” and actually follow through.
Image generation
This one surprised me. I needed consistent header images for these posts — something that looked like it belonged to Loopcraft’s visual style.
Claude can write SVGs directly, which is already useful for diagrams and icons. But it can also take those SVGs and stylize them into PNGs. I described the visual style I wanted — colors, aesthetic, mood — and now when I need a header image, Claude generates an SVG with the right composition and converts it to a PNG that matches.
Not game-changing for the second brain itself, but useful for the content I produce from it.
Projects that outgrow the nest
Often a project starts as a folder in my second brain — research notes, early drafts, scattered ideas. Then it grows. Gets its own repo. Becomes a real thing.
But even after a project moves out, I can still track how it relates to everything else through the knowledge graph. The memory MCP I covered in Part 2 stores relationships between entities — which projects connect to which goals, which skills feed into which work. So when a side project becomes its own codebase, I don’t lose the context of why it exists or how it fits into the bigger picture.
My newsletter started this way. So did a couple of tools I’ve built. The second brain is where things incubate, and even after they leave, the relationships stay mapped.
The system keeps expanding
That’s the thing I didn’t expect when I started this. I built it for knowledge management — gather, process, organize. But it keeps becoming more.
I’m probably not done discovering what this can do. If you’re building something similar, I’d love to hear what capabilities you’ve found. What MCPs are you running? What workflows emerged that you didn’t plan?
TL;DR
The core setup uses fetch for web content, memory for relationships, and Notion for mobile access. But capabilities keep expanding from there. Summary gives me focus. The source list controls what flows in. GitHub adds backup. Tailscale adds remote access. Luma adds event awareness. Notion reminders replace Google Calendar.
Start with the core, add things when you discover a need. The system grows with you.
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Published on loopcraft.io