How to Build Your Personal AI System is a free 6-lesson course from @davewaring, co-creator of BrainDrive. It takes less than 30 minutes to complete, and by the end you’ll have your own AI system running privately on your computer — able to chat with your documents without an internet connection.
It’s built for developers and vibe coders who want to understand and build on the Personal AI Architecture — the same architecture BrainDrive is built on. Dave uses Claude Code in the videos; the same process works with any coding agent.
The six lessons
- Build Your Own AI System (Simple Architecture) — the Personal AI Architecture: 4 components, 2 APIs, and the one place you actually do want to be locked in.
- Free Github Spec & Template for Building Your Own AI — the open spec and TypeScript template that give you a working starting point.
- 5 Step Workflow for Building Your AI System — the workflow for building anything on top of your system with a coding agent, without touching a line of code.
- Building Private Chat w/ Docs Using Claude Code — the full process live, start to finish, to a working private chat-with-docs app on your own machine.
- Using BrainDrive as Your Personal AI System (MIT Licensed) — BrainDrive as the MIT-licensed reference implementation, and three ways to use it.
- Why You Should Build Your Own AI System — the ownership case: privacy, alignment, and why your systems should travel with you.
How it works
- Free, no catch. Each lesson is a thread here — watch at your own pace and ask questions right in the thread. Dave answers.
- Every lesson video is under 10 minutes; the whole course runs in one sitting.
Resources
The Personal AI Architecture (start here): GitHub - Personal-AI-Architecture/the-architecture: MIT licensed user-owned AI runtime: 4 components, 2 APIs, zero lock-in. Your Memory is the platform. · GitHub
TypeScript Template: GitHub - Personal-AI-Architecture/ts-architecture-template: Contract-first TypeScript template for the Personal AI Architecture: Memory, Agent Loop, Gateway, and Auth with API contracts, conformance tests, and lock-in guardrails to help developers build swappable, local-first AI apps fast. · GitHub
BrainDrive (MIT-licensed reference implementation): https://braindrive.ai
All course threads: Topics tagged paa-course
Start with Lesson 1 → Build Your Own AI System (Simple Architecture)