I built my own operating system for my creator business
KraigOS is the small system Claude and I built to run my one-person business: one database I own, a few tools and two AI routines. Why, and what it does.
I make long films about hiking alone, about 250 of them on YouTube, and hiking guides to the routes in them. It's a one-person business, and like most one-person businesses, the work around the work is the part that never ends: email from brands and platforms, deadlines, files, posts on five platforms, numbers to check.
For the last seven weeks I've been building something to carry that load. I call it KraigOS.
The problem it solves
In late September I put my real problem into words: "we have a lot of good ideas and also just like a lot of work, but none of it ever really just like happens." Ideas were never short. Shipping was.
So the rule for everything since: shrink my part. If Claude can do it, Claude does it. What's left for me is a yes, a no, a pick, or a step only I can do, like filming, recording my voice or signing.
What KraigOS is
KraigOS is one database and a handful of tools that Claude uses while I talk in plain language. There are no commands to learn. I just say what I want in a Claude chat, and Claude answers from the records, my email, my calendar and my Drive.
It holds facts, not rules: my projects and to-dos, deals, people, dates and decisions, the catalog of all 249 of my films, a ledger of every short and where it's posted, and a searchable log of 48,800 moments from my films. Everything else has one home too: conversations in Gmail, dates in Google Calendar, files in Google Drive, code on GitHub.
The one-page rulebook I signed off on sums up the point: keep one trustworthy record of my work, kept current without effort on my part, so nothing depends on my memory or Claude's.
Why my own, and why Cloudflare
I want my data in an account I own. On September 25 I said it plainly: "i'd like to keep all my data in cloudflare if possible." So the database lives in my own Cloudflare account, not inside someone else's app. It works with my Mac closed, it's backed up every day, and the code is saved to a private GitHub repo on every change.
How it grew
Before Claude, I spent the summer learning to build with OpenAI's Codex: almost 20 billion tokens and a 55-day streak (my Codex profile). The first KraigOS came out of that on August 25, and it kept growing, to about 77,000 lines of code: email pipelines, a cloud runtime, tools for a podcast and for X. On September 23 Claude and I replaced all of it with one database and one small program. Its instructions still open with the same line: "KraigOS Lite is deliberately small. Keep it that way."
Then it grew again, carefully. Workers in Cloudflare started sorting my email and keeping my calendar around the clock. From October 1 a Claude task on my Mac worked through a to-do list on its own.
On October 12 I split the work by what it needs. Jobs that follow fixed rules, like the daily backup and reading the numbers on my posts, run as plain code in Cloudflare, with no AI. My words when we planned it: "these are all good, especially if they can be done for free with the cloudworker continously." Anything that needs judgement moved to two Claude routines, which I call Auto Claude. That story is its own article: Auto Claude.
What it runs today
Most of my recent articles are really about a piece of KraigOS:
- Email. Every email is read, what it says is saved, and finished threads leave the inbox. Brand pitches become one card with a reply ready. Inbox zero with AI.
- My calendar. Claude manages all of it from the records. I never type in it.
- Films and footage. The catalog of every film, the original files in Drive, and every logged shot searchable. Ten years of YouTube films in Google Drive.
- Shorts. Every short, where it's posted and its numbers on each platform. What 201 Facebook reels taught me.
- Translations. My films' titles and descriptions in six more languages. Translating my YouTube films with AI.
- Guides. Built by Claude from my own films and GPS tracks, and kept up to date. How my hiking guides are made.
- My voice. An AI clone of my voice for narration that stands on its own. How I cloned my voice with AI.
How I use it
I talk to it. When I sit down to work, I say "morning" in a Claude chat: "i also like to say 'morning' when i start my work in claude so that also might be a good time/place to update me and get started". Claude tells me what needs me and walks me through the review list, one question at a time, each with its recommendation.
What it never does
- Nothing goes out without my yes. Sending an email, posting, paying, signing and deploying all wait for me, on the exact thing.
- Nothing is deleted. Claude moves safe copies to the Trash, and I empty it myself.
- No secrets saved. Passwords, codes and keys that show up in email are blanked out before anything is stored.
- Sign-ins are logged first. Any time Claude signs in somewhere or changes an account setting, it writes it down before it acts.
What's next
I said it in the Drive article: "now I feel another shift coming, toward adopting AI and adapting to the changes it brings: KraigOS, and automating just about everything in my media workflow."
So KraigOS gets its own page on this site, kraigadams.com/kraigos, so people can understand, in my words, "what i've built, what i'm using and how they could make their own version and why". It changes as KraigOS changes, and every article about it is listed there. Next for the system itself: on October 19 I decide which parts of Auto Claude move to autopilot.
FAQ
What is KraigOS?
My own small operating system for a one-person creator business: one database in my Cloudflare account, a handful of tools, and Claude doing the work while I talk in plain language.
What AI does it use?
Claude, from Anthropic, for almost everything. Google's Gemini wrote the shot logs of my films, and my narration voice is an ElevenLabs clone.
Can I download KraigOS?
No. It's built around my own business and accounts. The KraigOS page explains how to build your own version from the same few pieces.
Does the AI send emails or post for you?
No. Anything sent, posted, paid or signed waits for my yes on the exact thing.
Where is the data kept?
In a database in my own Cloudflare account, backed up every day. Files stay in my Google Drive and code on GitHub.