An AI knowledge base works best when the AI builds and files it for you, says Beth Ayers, CEO of Metomic. Nearly 100 skills were using up a third of her context in every new window. She explained how she rebuilt it at aiblLIVE London 2026.
Her set-up is a folder of markdown files that Claude organises itself, with a small index that loads first. A work ledger lets any new window carry on where the last one stopped. Here is how it works.
All figures as stated on stage by Beth Ayers.
It splits thinking from memory. The model does the thinking, and markdown files on a local drive, synced to Google Drive, hold the memory. Each new window reads only a top layer of rules, an index and a roster of specialists. Claude then pulls in project files and connectors as needed.
My brain has two elements. It has a thinking element, which is the model, and then you have your memory, which is all of your files.
Beth Ayers, CEO, Metomic
A running record of what each session produced and where the files live. It means Ayers can start a board pack in one window and finish it in another days later, without hunting for the old chat. She trims it to about the last couple of months, to keep it short.
Through ordinary conversations. She compares Claude’s draft with her own rewrite and asks why they differ, which surfaces rules she had never stated. After long sessions, she asks Claude what it learned and how to codify it, then updates an agent, skill or rule.
With a private-by-default rule and fortnightly housekeeping. Every file is marked private or public, after Claude once wrote candid notes into files shared with the company. Every fortnight, Claude culls duplicates and dead files, trims old material and merges repeated rules.
Start with one folder, one thing you want to do, one set of rules, and then just collaborate with your AI and figure out what you want to do.
Beth Ayers, CEO, Metomic
Beth Ayers is CEO of Metomic. A heavy Claude user who describes herself as disorganised, she rebuilt her own AI set-up around a markdown knowledge base that Claude organises for her. She spoke on the Efficiency track at aiblLIVE London on 20 October 2026.
If you keep repeating yourself to AI, this is the set-up to copy. The full PDF goes deeper than this page, in Ayers’ own words.
For founders, CEOs, operators and anyone who uses Claude or ChatGPT every day. Six pages, about an eight-minute read.
