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Quickstart — Your First 5 Minutes with BOB

For users who already have BOB installed (done-for-you setup, or after completing getting_started). This page verifies the install works and shows your first real query.

If you don't have BOB installed yet → start with getting_started (vault root) instead.

Step 1 — Open the vault in Obsidian (30 sec)

  1. Open Obsidian
  2. Choose this vault from the vault picker
  3. The sidebar shows the vault's top-level folders — on the default layout 00-CORE/, 10-ME/, 20-COMPANY/, etc.

✅ If you see those folders, the vault loaded correctly.

Step 2 — Open the Agent Client panel (30 sec)

  1. In Obsidian, open the Command Palette (Ctrl+P / Cmd+P)
  2. Type Agent Client and select Agent Client: Open
  3. A side panel opens with a chat-style interface

✅ If the panel opens and shows a model selector, the ACP plugin is working.

If the panel doesn't open: see agent-client-installation.

Step 3 — Ask BOB a sanity-check question (1 min)

Type this exactly into the Agent Client panel:

List the top-level folders in this vault and tell me what each is for.

Press Enter. Within ~10 seconds you should see BOB: - Read the vault structure - Return a short description of each top-level folder ({vault.core}, {me.root}, {company.root}, {company.clients}, {resource.root})

✅ If you got a sensible answer, all 4 layers are working: Obsidian → ACP → Claude Code → AI model.

If BOB errors out or hangs: see Troubleshooting below.

Step 4 — Ask BOB something useful (2 min)

Now try a real business question. Pick one:

Try this What happens
Help me draft a 3-line cold email for a B2B SaaS prospect BOB picks the cold-email skill, asks 1–2 clarifying questions, drafts copy
What skills do you have for sales? BOB lists relevant skills from the library (~100+ for starter vault)
Summarize what's in 40-RESOURCES/ BOB reads the folder and returns a topic map
Walk me through setting up my company profile BOB invokes onboarding flow

✅ You're now using BOB.

Step 5 — Where to go next (1 min)

Goal Read
Understand what BOB is and how it works bob_overview
Learn day-to-day usage patterns using_bob
Browse all available skills SKILLS (vault root — auto-generated index)
Customize for your business Add company info to {company.profile-root}
Add your first client Use the create-client skill
Have agents check every note they write install-agent-hooks (once per machine)

Troubleshooting

Symptom Guide
Agent Client panel won't open, API key errors ts_agent_client
Skills not found, symlink broken ts_skills
Vault folders missing, trust prompt skipped ts_vault
"command not found", plugins not loading ts_install

For environment verification, see environment_checklist.