Your Own Claude Setup

Steps

What you get
Before you start
Create your home repo
Connect GitHub to Claude
Set up the cloud environment
Test it
Add your phone
Set up chat memory
Teach it as you go
Scheduled work
Optional: a folder on your laptop
When it does not work

1What you get

Same Claude everywhereA session you start at the office shows up on your phone and at home. Pick it up mid-task.

It remembersYour standing rules and the facts it learns about your deals live in a private folder it reads at the start of every session.

Thrive dataThe company connectors (Microsoft 365, Egnyte, Entrata, Procore, NetSuite) work in every session, under your own login.

Work while you sleepRoutines run a saved task on a schedule, such as a Monday leasing summary in your inbox.

Two kinds of Claude are involved, and the guide sets up both:

Use	When	Memory comes from
Chat (the normal Claude window, inside a Project)	Questions, connector pulls, email drafts, reading a document	Project instructions plus Claude's own memory
Code (the Code tab, cloud session)	Anything that produces files, runs more than a few steps, or that you want remembered for next time	Your home repo: CLAUDE.md plus the memory folder

The one thing to understand

Code sessions read and write your home repo. Chat does not. The repo is the memory that follows you between machines, so when it matters that Claude remembers, use Code and finish the session by telling it to save what it learned.

2Before you start

A Claude seat that includes Claude Code. On the Thrive plan that is a Premium seat, or a Standard seat with Claude Code added. If the Code tab is missing from your Desktop app, ask Joel for the seat change before going further. Steps 8 and 9 work on any seat.
Claude Desktop on each computer you use (claude.ai/download), signed in with your thrivecos.com account.
Claude mobile app on your phone, same account.
A GitHub account. Free at github.com. Sign up with your thrivecos.com email and turn on two-factor authentication. Thrive does not have a GitHub organization, so this is your own account holding one private folder.

3Create your home repo

A repo is a private folder on GitHub. Yours holds two things: a rules file and a memory folder. You can do all of this in the browser.

On github.com, click the + at top right, then New repository.
Name it firstname-claude-home. Set it to Private. Tick Add a README file. Click Create repository.
Click Add file, then Create new file. Name it CLAUDE.md, paste the template below, edit the two lines marked with brackets, and click Commit changes.
Repeat for a file named memory/MEMORY.md (typing the slash creates the folder). Paste the second template.

CLAUDE.md template

# Home repo for Claude sessions

You are working for [Your Name], [title] at Thrive Companies (Columbus, OH). Email [you]@thrivecos.com. This repo is my persistent memory for Claude sessions. Read it first, keep it current.

## Start of every session
1. Read memory/MEMORY.md. Open any memory file that plausibly matches the task before saying you lack context. Short requests are usually a standing workflow recorded there.
2. The Thrive Companies plugin (thrive-knowledge, thrive-brand) is the source of truth for names, properties, people, systems and voice. Use it; do not restate it here.

## End of every session
Commit anything durable you learned to memory/ (one fact per file, with a name, a one-line description and a type of user, feedback, project or reference), add its line to memory/MEMORY.md, and push. Update or delete a file that turned out wrong instead of adding a duplicate. Never commit passwords, tokens, account numbers, health or family details.

## Standing rules
- Time zone is Columbus, Ohio (Eastern). Cloud sessions run on UTC. Convert before writing any date or time and label it ET. Never stamp a report with a UTC date.
- Never send email. Draft only, in my Drafts folder, and tell me it is there.
- Project files go to the project's Egnyte folder. Every appraisal goes to Groups > Finance > Appraisals.
- Say what you verified and how. Label anything untested as untested.
- Finish the whole task. If you left something out, say what and why.
- [Add your own rules here as you correct Claude. One line each.]

memory/MEMORY.md template

# Memory index
One line per fact file. Open the file before relying on it; it may be stale, check dates. When you learn something durable, add a file (name, description, type) and a line here.

- [example-standing-rule](example-standing-rule.md) - Replace this line with your first real memory.

Check

Your repo page on github.com shows README.md, CLAUDE.md and a memory folder, and the lock icon next to the name says Private.

4Connect GitHub to Claude

Claude needs permission to open your private repo. Without this step the repo picker in the next step shows nothing.

Signed in to GitHub, open github.com/apps/claude/installations/new.
Choose your account. Leave All repositories selected, or pick Only select repositories and tick your home repo.
Click Install & Authorize. It redirects to claude.ai; that is expected.

Check

github.com/settings/installations now lists Claude under Installed GitHub Apps. If it says "No installed GitHub Apps", the install did not finish.

5Set up the cloud environment

A cloud session is Claude working on a computer Anthropic runs, with your repo cloned into it. That is what lets your phone and your laptops share the same session.

Open Claude Desktop. Click the Code tab (the </> icon at the top left).
Click + New at the top of the left sidebar.
Under the text box, click the This computer chip and switch it to the cloud option. The right-hand panel now shows Environment: Default.
In that panel click Add repository..., type the name of your home repo, and pick it.
Click the gear next to Default. Open Network access and choose Limited. Connectors still work; Limited only stops the session from browsing arbitrary websites. Switch to Full later if a task needs a public records site or a lender portal. Save changes.

Why this sticks

The repository and the network setting belong to the Default environment, not to one session. Every new cloud session you start, on any device, gets them. Set once.

6Test it

In the new cloud session type:

What time zone should you use, and what are my standing rules? Cite the file you read them from.

Pass: it answers Eastern, lists your rules, and names CLAUDE.md. Fail: it answers from general knowledge or asks what rules you mean. On a fail, look at the grey line above your first message. It should read "Started in the cloud" followed by your repo name. If it names a different repo or no repo, go back to step 5.

7Add your phone

Open the Claude mobile app, same account. Tap the Code tab.
Your cloud sessions are already listed, including the test you just ran. Open one and continue it, or tap + for a new session. It uses the same Default environment, so your repo is attached.
Lock the phone mid-task. The session keeps running and the result is waiting when you come back.

Rule of thumb: start work in the cloud by default. Use a local session (step 11) only when the job needs a file that lives on that particular computer.

8Set up chat memory

Chat does not read your repo, so give it a shorter version of the same rules.

On claude.ai, open Settings and turn Memory on, if it is not already.
Click Projects, then New project. Name it after yourself.
Open the project's Instructions and paste the template below, edited for you.
Start chats that matter from inside that Project. A chat started from the home screen does not get the instructions.

Project instructions template

I am [Your Name], [title] at Thrive Companies in Columbus, Ohio.

Time: Columbus, Ohio, Eastern. You run on UTC. Convert before writing any date or time and label it ET. Never date anything with the UTC day.

Email: never send. Draft only, reply-all by default, full thread quoted, my signature in the body. If the sender opened with no greeting, lead with the answer. Answer their questions inline under each question. Do not add asks, offers or facts they did not request.

Files: project files belong in the project's Egnyte folder. Appraisals live in Groups > Finance > Appraisals; look there first.

Be direct. Name the untested assumption before agreeing with me. Say what you verified and how.

[Add your own rules here.]

Three memories, one source of truth

Chat memory, the Project instructions and the repo do not sync with each other. Treat the repo as the one that is always right. When you add a rule in one place, add it in the other two the same day.

9Teach it as you go

When Claude gets something wrong, correct it and say: "Save that as a standing rule in memory and push." It writes one small file and updates the index.
When it learns a durable fact (a loan term, who owns what, where a file lives), end the session with: "Save what you learned to memory and push."
One fact per file. Short files with a clear name beat one long notes file. Claude can find westbend-fidelity-pref.md; it cannot find paragraph 14 of notes.md.
Never in memory: passwords, tokens, account numbers, personal health or family details. The repo is private, but it is still a copy on GitHub.
Two sessions at once on the same repo can collide when both save. Finish one before starting the next, or tell the second one to pull before it commits.

10Scheduled work

A Routine is a saved Code prompt that runs on a schedule in the cloud, with your repo and connectors attached.

Open claude.ai/code/routines and click New routine.
Write the task as you would in a session. Example: "Using Entrata, summarize occupancy and leased percentage for Trace Quarter, Rockpointe and Moore's Edge as of today, in ET, and create a draft email to me with the table."
Attach your home repo, pick a schedule (the shortest interval is one hour; weekly on Monday at 7 AM ET is a good first one), and save.

Routines are yours alone and count against your own usage. Keep them to work you would otherwise do by hand every week.

11Optional: a folder on your laptop

Only needed when Claude must touch files that live on one computer. Skip this until you hit that case.

Install GitHub Desktop, sign in, and clone your home repo to your laptop.
In Claude Desktop, + New, leave the chip on This computer, click the folder chip, choose Open folder..., and pick the cloned repo folder.
When the session ends, open GitHub Desktop and click Push origin so the cloud and your phone see what it saved.

Do not put the repo inside OneDrive

OneDrive and Git fight over the same files and the repo ends up corrupted. Clone it to a plain folder such as Documents/GitHub.

12When it does not work

What you see	What it means	Fix
"Add repository..." finds nothing	The Claude GitHub app is not installed, or was installed without this repo	Step 4. Then sign out of GitHub inside Claude's settings and reconnect.
The session says it has no context for your rules	It is not running on your repo	Read the grey line above the first message. Fix the environment (step 5) and start a new session.
It cloned the repo but the folder is empty	Wrong repo, usually a test repo with no files	Open the gear next to Default, remove that repo, add the right one.
Dates are a day ahead in the evening	The cloud runs on UTC and your time rule is missing	Check CLAUDE.md has the time zone line, or add it as a standing rule.
It saved memory but the phone does not see it	The session did not push, or you are in a local folder that was never pushed	Say "push to GitHub", or click Push origin in GitHub Desktop.
Two sessions saved at once and one failed	Push conflict	Tell the failed session: "pull, keep both changes, then push."
No Code tab in the Desktop app	Seat does not include Claude Code	Ask Joel. Steps 8 and 9 still work.

Version 1, October 28, 2026. Built from a live setup on the same day; the click paths match the current Claude Desktop, mobile app and GitHub screens and will drift as those change. Send corrections to Joel.