NeuroOS

A personal operating system for ADHD founders, builders, and operators. Bypass the prefrontal cortex with shell scripts, launchd, and iMessage.

This is the free kernel — the 6 AM Morning Brief that runs your day before your brain comes online.

6:00 AM  →  launchd fires
         →  reads your calendar (today's events)
         →  reads ALL_DEADLINES.md (top 3 due in 72h)
         →  reads priorities.md (top 3 today)
         →  Claude composes a 7-line brief
         →  Messages.app sends iMessage to your phone
         →  archives to your journal

You wake up. You read 1 message. You know what to do.
No app to open. No tab to find. No decision to make.

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Why this exists

ADHD founders fail not from lack of ambition but from decision fatigue at 6 AM. The first hour of the day is when your prefrontal cortex is least online — and it's the hour every productivity app demands you log in, scroll, prioritize, choose.

NeuroOS inverts the contract. Your day is already decided by the time your eyes open. The system reads your inputs the night before and pushes one tactical message to your lock screen.

Built and battle-tested by @jjawnee — neuroscience student, founder, ADHD-wired.

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What you get (this repo, free)

• bin/morning-brief.sh — 200-line zsh kernel. Calendar.app + deadlines + priorities → 7-line iMessage at 6 AM.
• launchd/com.neuroos.morningbrief.plist — macOS launchd job that fires it daily.
• install.sh — one-command install. Edits paths, copies plist, loads launchd.
• examples/ — template priorities.md and ALL_DEADLINES.md to get you started.

That's the whole free kernel. Runs forever. MIT licensed. No telemetry, no account, no cloud.

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What's in NeuroOS Pro ($29 one-time)

The free kernel proves the pattern works. Pro is the full kit:

Pro module	Fires at	What it does
Modular brief engine	6:00 AM	The pluggable adapter system that powers Johnny's actual prod brief — calendar, deadlines, financial, ventures, classes, priorities, carryover, inbox. Pluggable. Extensible.
Morning check-in	7:00 AM	Habit-stack accountability — 11 questions, reply Y/N
Midday checkpoint	12:30 PM	"This morning you said X — did it happen?"
Evening close	9:30 PM	3-question journal trigger before laptop shuts
Bedtime stack	9:00 PM	Day-of-week-rotated wind-down protocol
Friday week-in-review	5:00 PM Fri	Claude synthesizes journal + git → markdown + iMessage
Sunday triage nudge	6:00 PM Sun	Counts inbox, only fires if work to do
Week-ahead trigger	6:00 PM Sun	5 prompts to plan the week before it eats you
Danger-window nudge	7:00 PM Fri/Sat/Sun	Time-keyed sobriety / impulse-control protocol
Cowork-stager	10:00 PM	Pre-stages tomorrow's brief data so 6 AM is instant
PBP doctrine	(Day 3 drop)	The Prefrontal Bypass Protocol — the 4-layer methodology behind the system

→ Buy NeuroOS Pro on Gumroad — $29 one-time, lifetime updates.

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Quick start

git clone https://github.com/jjawnee/neuroos
cd neuroos
./install.sh

The installer asks for your iMessage phone number, templates the launchd plist with your $HOME, drops the script into ~/.config/neuroos/, and loads the 6 AM job.

First run: touch /tmp/morningbrief-test.flag && ~/.config/neuroos/bin/morning-brief.sh You should get a [TEST] iMessage within 30 seconds.

See INSTALL.md for the full setup, including Calendar.app permissions, Messages.app permissions, and the Claude CLI dependency.

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What you'll need

• macOS 12+ (uses Calendar.app, Messages.app, launchd, osascript)
• Claude CLI installed and authenticated
• iMessage active on this Mac (signed in to your Apple ID)
• A priorities.md file (template in examples/)
• A ALL_DEADLINES.md file (template in examples/)

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The philosophy

"Your prefrontal cortex is the bottleneck. Engineer around it, not through it."

• Decision-cost minimization. The brief makes decisions for you so you don't have to make them tired.
• No app. Your phone's lock screen is the UI. Notifications are the API.
• Local-first. Files on disk. No SaaS. No login. No sync conflict.
• Composable. Every script is a 100-line zsh file. Read it. Edit it. Fork it.

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License

MIT. See LICENSE.

The Pro kit ships under a separate license (single-user, redistribution prohibited) — see Gumroad listing for terms.

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Bug? Open an issue on this repo. Want the full kit? Gumroad → $29.