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Getting Started with Polymath World

Complete setup guide — written for people who are new to terminals, npm, and developer tools. If you've never opened a terminal before, start here.

What you'll need

Four things, installed in this order:

# Tool What it is Cost
1 Obsidian Note-taking app — your vault lives here Free
2 Node.js Lets your computer run the npx polymath-world command Free
3 Claude Code Anthropic's AI assistant that runs in your terminal ~$0.01–0.05/day (API usage)
4 Anthropic API key Connects Claude Code to Anthropic's servers Included with Claude Code setup

⚠️ Claude Code is not the same as Claude.ai. Claude.ai is the chatbot in your browser. Claude Code is a separate tool that runs in your terminal and can read and write files on your computer — which is what makes the wiki maintenance possible.

Step 1 — Install Obsidian

  1. Go to obsidian.md
  2. Click Download and install it like any other app
  3. You don't need to open or configure anything yet — just have it installed

Step 2 — Install Node.js

Node.js is what makes the npx polymath-world command work. You don't need to understand it — just install it.

Windows

  1. Go to nodejs.org
  2. Click the LTS button (labelled "Recommended For Most Users")
  3. Run the downloaded .msi file — click Next through all the defaults
  4. Open the Terminal app:
    • Press the Windows key, type Terminal, press Enter
    • (If Terminal isn't available, search for Command Prompt instead)
  5. Type this and press Enter: 
    node --version
    You should see something like v20.11.0 — that means it's working ✅

Mac

  1. Go to nodejs.org
  2. Click the LTS button
  3. Run the downloaded .pkg file — click through the defaults
  4. Open the Terminal app:
    • Press Cmd + Space, type Terminal, press Enter
  5. Type this and press Enter: 
    node --version
    You should see something like v20.11.0 — that means it's working ✅

Step 3 — Install Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic's AI assistant that runs in your terminal. It reads and writes files directly on your computer, which is what makes it a vault maintainer rather than just a chatbot.

Pricing: Claude Code uses the Anthropic API with usage-based pricing. A typical daily session costs $0.01–$0.05. There is no monthly subscription — you only pay for what you use.

Install steps

  1. In your terminal, run: 
    npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
  2. When it's done, run: 
    claude --version
    You should see a version number ✅
  3. Run claude once to connect your Anthropic account — it will open a browser window for authentication

For full Claude Code documentation: claude.ai/code

Step 4 — Open your terminal and navigate to the right place

Your vault is a folder on your computer. The terminal needs to be "inside" the parent folder where you want your vault created.

Open the terminal

Windows: Press the Windows key, type Terminal, press Enter

Mac: Press Cmd + Space, type Terminal, press Enter

Navigate to your chosen location

Type cd (change directory) followed by the folder path, then press Enter.

To put your vault in Documents:

Windows:

cd Documents

Mac:

cd ~/Documents

To put it in a specific subfolder (e.g. Documents → Projects):

cd Documents/Projects

💡 Tip: You can type ls (Mac) or dir (Windows) and press Enter to see what's in the current folder — useful to confirm you're in the right place.

Step 5 — Run the installer

In your terminal, type this and press Enter:

npx polymath-world

npx downloads and runs the package automatically — you don't need to install anything else first. The first run downloads Polymath World (takes a few seconds), then starts the interactive setup.

Step 6 — Answer the three setup questions

The CLI will ask you three things:

Question 1: Where should I create your vault? Press Enter to accept the default (./my-vault), or type a custom name like Second Brain and press Enter.

Question 2: What areas do you want to start with? Areas are your ongoing responsibilities — Learning, Health, Finance, Work are the defaults. Press Enter to accept them, or type your own list separated by commas (e.g. Design, Research, Language, Health).

Question 3: Install caveman for token compression? (y/n) Caveman compresses Claude's conversational messages to reduce API costs. It does not affect wiki page quality. Type y to install or n to skip — you can add it later.

The vault folder is created once you answer all three. You'll see a confirmation message with next steps.

Step 7 — Open the vault in Obsidian

  1. Open Obsidian
  2. Click Open folder as vault
  3. Navigate to the folder just created (e.g. Documents/my-vault)
  4. Click Open

You'll see the PARA folder structure in the left panel. This is your vault.

Step 8 — Start Claude Code inside your vault

Go back to your terminal. Navigate into the vault folder you just created:

cd my-vault

(Replace my-vault with whatever you named your vault in Step 6.)

Then start Claude Code:

claude

Claude will read the CLAUDE.md file and confirm it's ready. You'll see a message like:

"I've read the schema and the last N log entries. Last activity was [date]. What would you like to work on?"

Step 9 — Your first ingest

You're ready to use the system.

Save an article, PDF, or any document into the 3 - Resources/ folder inside your vault. Then, inside the Claude Code session you opened in Step 8, type:

ingest [filename]

For example:

ingest my-article.md

Claude will classify the source, extract key takeaways, write structured wiki pages, update your index, and log the activity — all automatically.

Next steps

  • Ingest Guide — detailed walkthrough of the full ingest workflow
  • Daily Notes — how daily journaling works differently from regular ingests
  • FAQ — workflow questions, cost, structure, philosophy

Troubleshooting

"npx: command not found" or "node is not recognized" Node.js isn't installed or didn't install correctly. Go back to Step 2.

"claude: command not found" Claude Code isn't installed. Go back to Step 3.

"Permission denied" (Mac only) Run the command with sudo:

sudo npx polymath-world

The vault folder was created but seems empty Check that you opened the correct folder in Obsidian. The vault root should contain CLAUDE.md and the numbered folders (0 - Wiki, 1 - Projects, etc.).

Something else went wrong Open an issue at github.com/Hi7anshu/polymath-vault/issues — describe what happened and paste the error message you saw.