How to Make a Jarvis for Your Small Business: The Two-File AI Assistant Setup

When you finish this build, you’ll have a local AI assistant that knows your business by name — your services, your prices, how you like to sound — and drafts the busywork for your review. It won’t send anything on its own. You stay on the send button. That’s the design, not a limitation. If you’re exploring what a personal AI assistant can do for a small business, this is one of the most concrete starting points available: two text files, a free notes app, and the $20-a-month plan you may already be paying for.

The whole stack comes from a free, MIT-licensed template repo. No email wall, no course at the end. Every file shown here is yours to copy.

Prerequisites: What You Need Before You Start

Two tools, one paid plan, $20/month total. Check these before you open a terminal:

• Claude Code (local terminal version) — included with eligible paid Claude plans. This workflow uses the locally installed terminal version; install that before starting.
• Obsidian — a free notes app. Per the Obsidian license page, Obsidian is free for business use. Install it and confirm it opens on your machine.
• A folder on your computer — create one dedicated folder where your Jarvis will live. Everything runs from here.
• A terminal — macOS Terminal, Windows Terminal, or any command-line app works.

The Two-File Trick: How a Jarvis AI Assistant Actually Knows Your Business

A one-off AI chat can be useful, but it often lacks durable business-specific context unless you’ve configured memory, projects, files, or custom instructions. You re-explain your prices. You paste the same background every session. The assistant is smart but it doesn’t know you.

The two-file trick fixes that with plain text files Claude Code reads before every task.

Obsidian stores everything as plain-text markdown files. Claude Code reads files natively. That compatibility is why the two tools work together without exports or copy-paste. Everything else — quotes, follow-ups, rundowns — is just one more job note added to a jobs folder.

How to Build Your Jarvis AI Assistant: The Step-by-Step Setup

Follow these steps in order. The bootstrap prompt in Step 4 does the heavy lifting — it clones the business-jarvis repo, copies the templates, creates your vault structure, and interviews you for your business details. You do not need to edit files manually if you use it.

Steps 5 and 6 cover the manual path if you prefer to build by hand or want to understand each file before the AI touches it.

Job 1 — The Quote Drafter: Paste an Inquiry, Get a Draft

The quote drafter is the job most small-business owners set up first, because the ROI is immediate and concrete. You write one note that teaches the assistant everything it needs to quote: your services, your prices, your standard inclusions, and your tone. From then on, quoting is paste-and-approve.

Beacon says: two files, one assistant, zero excuses — your very own Jarvis is closer than you think.

Here is what a day-one quote-drafter job note looks like for a residential cleaning company. Swap in your own details:

# Job: Quote Drafter

## What this job does
When I paste a customer inquiry, draft a quote email using the pricing
and structure below. Do not send it. Show me the draft and wait.

## Services and pricing (day-one placeholders — edit these)
- Standard clean (up to 3 bed / 2 bath): $150
- Deep clean (add-on to standard): $75
- Move-out clean: $225
- Add-on: interior windows: $40
- Add-on: inside oven: $25

## Quote structure
1. Thank them for reaching out, use their name if they gave it.
2. Confirm what I heard: size, date requested, any add-ons mentioned.
3. State the price clearly on its own line.
4. One line on availability: 'I have openings this week — just reply to confirm.'
5. Sign off as [Your Name], [Business Name].

## Tone rule
Direct and warm. No filler sentences. Sound like a person who values
their time and the customer's. Never 'Please do not hesitate to contact
us.' One friendly sentence max for the opener.

## Example of a quote I liked
---
Hi Sarah,

Thanks for reaching out! A standard clean for your 3-bed / 2-bath
home comes to $150. Add the deep-clean option and it is $225 total.

I have an opening Thursday morning or Saturday afternoon — whichever
works better for you, just reply and I will lock it in.

Talk soon,
Alex
Sparkle Clean Co.
---

With that note in your jobs folder, the workflow is: customer sends an inquiry, you paste it into Claude Code, the draft appears at the right price in the right tone, and you review before anything goes out. The prices are placeholders — update them to match your actual rate card on day one.

Job 2 — The Follow-Up Shift: One Question Every Morning

Follow-up number three is the one nobody wants to write. The lead went quiet, you sent two polite nudges, and now it feels awkward. So it doesn’t go out. And the lead dies.

The follow-up shift job turns that into a question you ask once each morning: ‘Who needs a nudge today?’ Your Jarvis checks the leads folder, matches the dates against your cadence rules, and shows you the drafted messages. You approve the ones worth sending.

Your follow-up-shift job note needs three things:

• Cadence — how many days between each touch (e.g., day 1, day 4, day 10)
• Tone by stage — warmer on the first nudge, shorter and more direct on the third
• Stop rule — when to stop following up (e.g., after three touches, or after a reply)

For a deeper look at building a review-gated follow-up workflow, see AI Customer Follow-Up Automation for Small Business — the same ‘draft first, owner approves’ principle applies whether you’re running a local file setup or a hosted one.

Job 3 — The Morning Rundown: Jarvis Reads You the Numbers

The morning rundown is the job that makes the whole setup feel like the movies. Your job note tells the assistant: when I ask for the rundown, check the leads folder, the jobs folder, and yesterday’s numbers note, then give it to me in five lines.

The repo also includes optional prompts that let Claude Code build a text-to-speech voice and a pulsing visualizer — so the rundown is delivered out loud with a face on screen. Those are optional extras in prompts/voice.md and prompts/visualizer.md. They are not required for the core two-file workflow. The assistant gives you a useful morning briefing in plain text without them.

The rundown depends on you keeping notes the assistant can read. Once you have the quote drafter and follow-up shift running, those notes accumulate naturally. The rundown just surfaces them.

One Rule That Never Bends: Draft Anything, Send Nothing

The first line of every CLAUDE.md in this setup is ‘draft anything, send nothing.’ That rule exists because AI coding agents with unchecked access have caused real damage in production environments — including a documented incident of an AI coding agent deleting production data during a code freeze, logged at the AI Incident Database, incident #1152. A business Jarvis that only drafts — and waits for your approval before anything leaves — is protected from that category of mistake entirely.

This setup also has honest walls to name. It lives on one computer. When your laptop is closed, the assistant is not watching your inbox. It works when you’re at the desk driving it. That’s the local-file model, and it’s the right starting point for understanding what the assistant can and can’t do before you hand it anything higher-stakes.

What This Jarvis Setup Actually Gives You

Two tools, one paid plan, $20/month total: Claude Code included with eligible paid Claude plans, and Obsidian free for business use per the Obsidian license page. What you get is a local AI assistant that knows your actual business — your prices, your tone, your customers — and drafts the busywork for your review. It is not autonomous. It does not run while you sleep. But it does mean that the next customer inquiry gets a properly priced, on-brand draft in the time it takes you to paste one paragraph.

If you want the same Business Brain idea running in the cloud — so it doesn’t sleep when your laptop does — Bryan’s product BrainRoad runs a hosted version with the same review-before-send principle. Worth a look once you’ve understood the local build.

The question to carry forward isn’t whether the drafts will be good. They will, once the files are filled in correctly. The question is whether your business context is organized enough for any AI to draft from. Start with the quote drafter. The rest follows. All templates are free at the business-jarvis repo — no email wall, no course at the end.

Frequently Asked Questions About Building a Jarvis AI Assistant

Does the $20/month Claude plan actually include Claude Code?

Yes. Claude Code is included with eligible paid Claude plans — you do not pay extra for it. Check the current plan details at Claude plans before subscribing, as plan structures can change.

Is Obsidian really free for business use?

Yes. Obsidian is free for business use. The Obsidian license page explains the licensing terms. A commercial license is optional, not required, as of the February 2025 licensing change.

Why is this better than just asking ChatGPT?

A one-off chat with any AI tool often lacks durable business-specific context unless you’ve set up memory, projects, custom instructions, or file uploads in that tool. You end up re-explaining your prices and tone every session. This setup writes your business details into plain-text files that Claude Code reads before every task — so the assistant already knows your rate card, your customer names, and how you like to sound, every time you open it. For example: if your standard clean is $150 and your deep-clean add-on is $75, those numbers live in the vault index permanently until you change them. A fresh ChatGPT conversation has none of that unless you paste it in manually.

Will it send emails or messages on its own?

No. The first rule in CLAUDE.md is ‘draft anything, send nothing.’ The assistant writes drafts and waits. You review and approve before anything goes out. That rule is not an accident — AI agents acting without human oversight have caused real damage in production environments, as documented in the AI Incident Database, incident #1152. Keeping the owner on the send button is the design.

What happens to my business context when I close my laptop?

The files stay on your computer until you change or delete them. When you reopen Claude Code in your Jarvis folder, it reads the current contents of CLAUDE.md and VAULT-INDEX.md. The context is file-based, not session-based — so it is as current as your most recent edit to those files. The assistant is not running in the background while your laptop is closed.

Do I need to know how to code?

No. The bootstrap prompt does the scaffolding. You answer the interview questions in plain English, and Claude Code fills in the files. The job notes are plain text that you edit like a document. The only command you type is ‘claude’ to start Claude Code in your folder.

Do I need the voice and visualizer to get started?

No. The text-to-speech voice and pulsing visualizer are optional extras included as separate prompts in the repo. They are not required for the core two-file workflow. The assistant gives you useful drafts in plain text without them. Add them later if you want the full Jarvis experience.

Sources

• business-jarvis repo — bdleasure (MIT)
• Claude plans and pricing
• Obsidian license page
• AI Incident Database, incident #1152