Chapter 13: Build Your AI Employee

Now it's time to combine everything into something greater than the sum of its parts.

This chapter guides you through building a Digital FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) — an AI agent that proactively manages your personal and business affairs 24/7. Not a chatbot you poke when you need something. An employee that watches for work, plans its approach, asks permission for sensitive actions, and reports results.

Your AI Employee uses every skill from this part: file processing for vault management, research for informed decisions, data analysis for metrics, document generation for communications, version control for safety, and automation for 24/7 operation.

Principles Applied — All Seven

This capstone chapter applies all seven principles from Chapter 3:

Principle	How Your Employee Uses It
Bash is the Key	File operations, process management, cron scheduling
Code as Universal Interface	Skills and subagents expressed as code
Verification as Core Step	HITL approval before sensitive actions
Small, Reversible Decomposition	Modular skills that compose into larger behaviors
Persisting State in Files	Obsidian vault as long-term memory
Constraints and Safety	Governance rules, audit logging, rate limits
Observability	Dashboard, logs, weekly CEO Briefing

Interface Focus

Combined: Code (skills, subagents, watchers) + Cowork (planning, debugging, refining)

What You'll Build

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│               YOUR PERSONAL AI EMPLOYEE                         │
│                                                                  │
│    PERCEPTION          REASONING           ACTION               │
│    (Watchers)       (Claude Code)        (MCP Servers)          │
│                                                                  │
│  ┌──────────┐      ┌──────────────┐      ┌──────────────┐       │
│  │  Gmail   │ ──▶  │   Skills +   │ ──▶  │ Gmail MCP    │       │
│  │  Watcher │      │   Subagents  │      │ Browser MCP  │       │
│  └──────────┘      └──────────────┘      └──────────────┘       │
│  ┌──────────┐              │                    │               │
│  │  File    │              ▼                    ▼               │
│  │  Watcher │      ┌──────────────┐      ┌──────────────┐       │
│  └──────────┘      │ HITL Approval│ ──▶  │ Real Actions │       │
│                    └──────────────┘      └──────────────┘       │
│                                                                  │
│    Memory: Obsidian Vault (Dashboard, Goals, Handbook, Logs)    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Three Achievement Tiers

Tier	Lessons	What You Get
Bronze	L01-L07	Working email assistant (manual trigger)
Silver	L01-L11	Proactive assistant + CEO Briefing (24/7)
Gold	L01-L12	Full autonomous employee with error recovery

Lessons

L00: Complete Specification (Reference)

Lesson	Title	Focus
L00	Complete Specification	Full architectural blueprint

Bronze Tier: Working Email Assistant

Lesson	Title	Focus
L01	Your Employee's Memory	Obsidian vault, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md
L02	Teaching Your Employee to Write	email-drafter skill
L03	Teaching Professional Formats	email-templates skill
L04	Teaching Email Intelligence	email-summarizer skill
L05	Hiring Specialists	3 email subagents
L06	Granting Email Access	Gmail MCP (19 tools)
L07	Bronze Capstone	email-assistant orchestrator

Silver Tier: Proactive Assistant

Lesson	Title	Focus
L08	Your Employee's Senses	Gmail Watcher, File Watcher
L09	Trust But Verify	HITL approval workflows
L10	Always On Duty	cron, PM2, watchdog
L11	Silver Capstone: CEO Briefing	Weekly audit + briefing

Gold Tier: Autonomous Employee

Lesson	Title	Focus
L12	Gold Capstone	Full autonomous integration

Assessment

Lesson	Title	Focus
L13	Chapter Assessment	Quiz + submission guidelines

Each earlier chapter builds a capability. This chapter combines them all into a working Digital FTE — proving that the paradigm from Part 1 isn't theoretical. It's something you can build today.