Field Guide No. 3 ยท Free

The Investing Brain: your research and your rules, wired into Claude so it can read your portfolio and speak the answer.

I'm Billy, founder of Manford. For three weeks I have been running my portfolio through an AI that reads my second brain: my research, the sources I trust, and my Bayesian rules. It reads the positions, reasons through them, proposes inside guardrails I set, and when I ask out loud how we are doing, it answers out loud.

This is the build. The folder structure, the rules I started with, the sources I read, the connection to the brokerage, the voice, and the morning prompt that ties it together. Give the folder to Claude Code and it builds the brain around you.

The Investing Brain, Manford Field Guide No. 3, beside three folders labeled raw, wiki, and rules

Up 12.3% on the capital deployed since August 19. Three weeks is nothing. I am sharing the number because it is real, not because it is proof of anything yet.

The post that started this page. Past results are not a forecast.
The download

Get the build

The build prompt you paste into Claude Code, the vault instructions, the starter Bayesian rules, the signal roster, the brokerage connection guide, the speak skill, and the morning brief. Enter your email and it unlocks right here.

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    Unlocked

    Download the Investing Brain

    One folder. Unzip it, open Claude Code inside it, paste the build prompt. It creates the vault, asks about your portfolio, walks you through the brokerage connection with guardrails first, and installs the voice.

    Download investing-brain.zip

    BUILD-PROMPT.mdPaste into Claude Code first. It builds the vault around you, one confirmed step at a time.
    CLAUDE.mdThe instructions Claude reads every session: how to compile, how to cite, how to propose, and the one rule that never changes.
    rules/bayesian-rules.mdTwelve starter rules. Size to probability, zones not points, the two-question news test, two sources or it is a rumor, confirm before execute.
    sources/signal-roster.mdWho I read, what each is good for, what each is biased toward, and how to get transcripts into the brain.
    CONNECT-ROBINHOOD.mdWiring the Robinhood agentic account, guardrails first. Or leave it read-only and keep a live analyst.
    skills/speak/The speak skill and script. ElevenLabs if you add a key, the Mac voice if you do not.
    prompts/morning-brief.mdThe daily loop: read the brain, read the book, reason, propose, speak.

    How the brain is laid out

    raw

    Source material you drop in. Transcripts, newsletters, reports. Claude never edits it.

    wiki

    What Claude compiles from raw: a page per source, per concept, per person, all linked, with an index.

    rules

    Your decision rules. Claude reads them before every proposal and names the rule each one rests on.

    Obsidian is optional. It is a window onto the same folder: graph, backlinks, search. Claude Code does the writing either way.

    Three steps

    1

    Build the brain

    Unzip, open Claude Code in the folder, paste the build prompt. It creates raw, wiki, rules, and portfolio, reads the instructions back to you in plain English, and asks for your first five sources.

    2

    Fill it

    Drop transcripts and newsletters into raw and say "compile raw". The roster tells you where to start. The rules tell Claude how to grade what it reads.

    3

    Connect and speak

    Wire the brokerage with guardrails first, install the voice, then run the morning brief. Ask how you are doing. It answers out loud.

    The full version

    This is the manual version.

    It works. It is also the part I can hand over in a folder. Mine runs a few more pieces that take real setup:

    • Semantic search over the whole vault, so the brain answers from meaning, not keywords
    • Nightly jobs that pull new videos and newsletters from the roster into raw while you sleep
    • Local models for the compile step, so the brain runs on your machine
    • A ledger that scores every source and every one of your own calls
    • The maintenance loops that keep a brain from rotting: lint, index, weekly synthesis

    If you want that built for you, on your machine, around your portfolio and your sources, book a call and I will walk you through what it looks like.

    Book a call
    30 minutes. I explain the full system and what it would take to build yours. No pitch deck.

    Educational material, not investment, tax, or legal advice. I own Bitcoin, mining hardware, and energy infrastructure, so read everything here knowing where I stand. An AI that can place orders is a tool you are responsible for. The kit ships with confirm-before-execute on, and I suggest leaving it there.