Skip to content

customization.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
157 lines (112 loc) · 5.28 KB

customization.md

File metadata and controls

157 lines (112 loc) · 5.28 KB
Raw

Customization

WIFM: Make Exo yours without forking.

Exo ships with opinionated defaults — anti-sycophancy personality, three-loop architecture, a specific set of hooks. You can customize most of it by editing a file. You only need to fork for changes that touch the core consolidation logic.

Swap the personality

Exo's character lives in a single file: ~/Exo/personality/exo-personality.md. The shipped default is the "warm machine" — rigorous, anti-sycophantic, with the seven traits documented in that file.

To customize: edit exo-personality.md directly. Exo reads it at session start; changes take effect next session.

To fork: copy exo-personality.md to my-personality.md in the same directory, edit, and update ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md to point at your file:

## Personality
Active personality: ~/Exo/personality/my-personality.md

Common edits:

  • Tone shift. The default leans dry. You can soften or sharpen it by editing the "How Exo Speaks" section.
  • Different traits. The seven traits are a starting set, not a contract. Remove or add as you want.
  • Different name and pronouns. Exo's name and pronouns are conventions, not constants. If you want your assistant called something else, search/replace and update pronoun rules.

Don't change what the consolidation loop reads (the trait names are referenced in some skill files). If you remove "Completion engine" entirely, the completion-related capture rules stop firing.

Add MCP servers

Exo treats MCP servers as the integration surface for the outside world. Adding one:

  1. Install the server (npm, pip, or binary). Example: 
    npx -y @some-vendor/mcp-server --install
  2. Add to ~/.claude.json: 
    {
  "mcpServers": {
    "some-vendor": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@some-vendor/mcp-server"],
      "env": { "API_KEY": "..." }
    }
  }
}
  3. Restart Claude Code.
  4. (Optional) Add a capture rule. Open or create ~/Exo/skills/some-vendor.md: 
    ---
name: some-vendor
description: Use when the user asks about some-vendor data
---
When the user asks about [topic], call mcp__some-vendor__[tool] and surface results inline.

That's it. Exo will discover the skill on next session start.

Opt-in power surfaces

Some Exo features are off by default because they're invasive for new users. Turn them on after you've used Exo for a couple of weeks and want more.

Feature What it does Enable by
Auto-dream Nightly background consolidation pass via launchd Run exo enable auto-dream
Focus gate Inject a context-switch warning when you edit outside your declared focus project Run exo enable focus-gate
TIL flow auto-prompt Prompt you for TIL candidates at end of every session, not just on EOD Edit ~/.claude/settings.json hook config
Watch-list aging surfacing Show aged watch-list items at session start Add --show-watchlist to the SessionStart hook
Telemetry (Permanently off. Not configurable.) n/a

Custom slash commands

Exo's slash commands live in ~/.claude/commands/. The shipped set:

  • /exo — setup wizard.
  • /daily — morning briefing.
  • /wrap [meeting] — meeting debrief.
  • /prep [person|meeting] — meeting pre-brief.
  • /dream — manual consolidation pass.
  • /review — pipeline review.
  • /weekly — weekly review.

Add your own by dropping a new markdown file in ~/.claude/commands/<name>.md. The file is the prompt that gets injected when you run /<name>.

Example — a custom /standup command:

# /standup

Pull the last 24h of activity from my active PULSEs, format as a three-bullet standup:
- What I did yesterday
- What I'm doing today
- What's blocked

Read from ~/Exo/projects/*/PULSE.md and summarize.

Save as ~/.claude/commands/standup.md. Available immediately as /standup.

Naming conventions

Exo enforces a four-prefix lifecycle for working files. Override or extend in your shell config:

Prefix Means Test
wip- Work in progress "Still cooking."
ref- Reference material "I look at this, I don't send it."
out- Output / deliverable "This goes to someone or somewhere."
old- Archived "Kept for history, no longer active."

The naming is enforced by skill rules, not by hooks (so you can break it without breaking the system). To customize: edit ~/Exo/skills/naming.md.

Disabling features

To disable a hook entirely, comment it out in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "SessionStart": [
      // { "command": "~/.claude/hooks/exo-pulse-session-start.sh" }
    ]
  }
}

To disable a skill, rename its file to _disabled-<name>.md — Exo's skill loader ignores files starting with underscore.

When to fork

Edit a file when:

  • You want a different personality.
  • You want to add or remove an integration.
  • You want to disable or enable a feature.
  • You want a new slash command or skill.

Fork the repo when:

  • You want to change the consolidation algorithm itself.
  • You want to redesign the data layer schema.
  • You're building a derivative tool with significantly different goals.

For everything in between, opening an issue or PR upstream is faster than maintaining a fork.