# Experts Phase 1: list for the call with Dave J

**Nov 5, 2026.** Dave W has agreed these for the call. None is final until Dave J has weighed in. The spec draft that reflects them is v0.11.

## The big picture

- An Expert is how the AI works with you. It comes with its own things and can use other things you grant it.
- Everything is a plugin, and plugins live in Your Memory, not on pages.
- The page is for the human. It shows what you work with and look at.
- Everything in Your Memory is reachable by any Expert in principle. Access starts closed, and you grant it in one step.
- Sharing shares what the Expert comes with. Your data and grants stay with you.

## Definitions

**1. Page.** A page is a workspace where the owner's work lives. In V1 a page is where an Expert lives, with a conversation, files and a journal. In the future other things can live on pages as well, such as a dashboard. This is why pages are defined separately from Experts.

**2. Plugin, skill and one format.**
- A plugin is the one package format in BrainDrive: how Experts and their capabilities are stored, installed and shared. It lives in Your Memory as plain files.
- A skill is one reusable way of doing a task. It always lives inside a plugin, as a standard Agent Skills folder holding a `SKILL.md` and any files it uses.
- One format: anything shared between owners is packaged as a plugin, following the Agent Plugins standard. If we ever have to leave that standard, the idea stays: everything is a plugin. Reading and writing the format sits behind an adapter (D903).

**3. Expert.** An Expert is how the AI works with the owner to get things done. It comes with its own instructions, skills, templates and reference files, and can use anything else the owner grants it. In the future it can also come with or use agents, apps, connections and scheduled tasks.

**4. BrainDrive Starter plugin.** The BrainDrive Starter plugin holds BrainDrive's default methods for creating Experts.

**5. Your Agent (needs Dave J's input).** Your Agent is the steward of Your Memory. It reads and writes across all of it on the owner's behalf, and Experts get anything outside their own page through it. Because it has the most access, the owner can talk to it about anything.

## Where things live

**6. Plugins live at the BrainDrive level, not on pages.** An Expert's own plugin stays tied to that Expert and its page. BrainDrive holds one copy of any other plugin, and it does nothing until granted to an Expert. An edit applies to every Expert using it, with a one-line notice ("Also used by your Career Expert"). To protect an Expert from changes, use Build it in. It works like a specialist your Experts rely on: if they change how they work, it changes for everyone they work with.

**7. The page is for the human.** Navigation is Conversation, Your Files and Your Expert. Your Expert replaces the "Plugins" section. Capabilities don't appear on the page just because an Expert uses them. Later, something made to look at, like a dashboard, gets its own navigation item.

## Access

**8. Access starts closed.** An Expert can use what it came with, and anything else needs a grant. Installing something never grants access.

**9. Grants take one step.** You add something from Your Expert, or the Expert asks and BrainDrive shows: "Start a Business wants to use information from your Finance page." **Allow once / Always allow / Don't allow.** "Always allow" covers that Expert and that page only. You can see and withdraw grants in Your Expert. They don't travel when you share.

**10. The folder rule becomes a default.** By default an Expert reads and writes only its page's folder. Reaching anything else in Your Memory requires a grant from the owner. In V1 the only grants are plugins and information through Your Agent. An Expert still can't read another page's folder directly on Dec 15.

**11. Code enforces grants, and Your Agent judges relevance (needs Dave J's input).** BrainDrive's code checks whether the Expert has a grant. Your Agent decides what's relevant, trims it and says where it came from: "about $20,000 in available savings", not the whole Finance page. This needs a new story in the Your Agent spec.

## Methods

**12. Goals, plan and journal methods leave the Starter plugin.** Creators can build them in or reference a shared plugin. The five Experts we ship have them built in, so each file stands alone, and we keep one source while building them. The journal format stays a protective app rule.

**13. The Starter plugin isn't attached to pages.** BrainDrive uses it when you choose Build your own or ask to create or change an Expert, on any page. It needs no grant and gets no access to your other Memory by being used.

## What stays with you

**14. Files you give an Expert stay in Your Files.** They go into the Expert's plugin, as reference files, only when you deliberately build them in.

**15. Teaching keeps improving the Expert.**
- How the Expert works goes straight into its plugin, and BrainDrive says so: "Updated: this Expert will now end every reply with next steps." **Undo.**
- Facts about you or your business go in your files or Memory through Your Agent, and never travel.
- When it isn't clear which, the Expert asks.
- The AI can infer changes, with four guardrails: only the owner's own words can prompt it, BrainDrive's code applies the change and writes the notice, it touches only that Expert's own plugin, and every change has Undo.

## Sharing

**16. The file is everything in the plugin, with no tick boxes.** To leave something out, remove it first. Your files, journal, conversation, grants and logins never go in the file.

**17. Bundling becomes Build it in.** Plugins granted to an Expert don't go by default. The pre-share review points them out, and you choose Build it in (keeps creator and license, recorded in `sources.json`) or Leave it out.

**18. An AI review runs automatically before sharing, and you can skip it.** It asks what the Expert should do for the recipient, reviews it against that, and recommends what to build in, remove or fix. It only recommends. BrainDrive's export card has the final word. With no model set up, sharing still works without the review. This is separate from the forum's security review.

**19. You can share any Expert you hold,** not only ones you made. The original creator and license stay with it.

## Decisions from earlier today, already in the spec

- One release for Dec 15, with sharing and ChatGPT and Claude compatibility included.
- Install from a link is cut to Later.
- Forum review: an AI review runs on every held post, a person approves at launch, and it's a simple script rather than a cloud agent.
- The five Experts are Finance, Fitness, Career, Relationships and Start a Business.
- The Docs freeze is lifted (D921).

## Questions for Dave J

1. **Marketplace:** he said on Nov 3 it would be "sitting in BrainDrive on December 15th". The spec says forum only. Confirm.
2. **Your Agent as steward (items 5 and 11):** does this fit PAA auth going into BrainDrive, the Gateway as the only door to Your Memory, and the unresolved profile and memory-update issues?
3. **Grants (items 8 to 11):** how big is this? It's the part most likely to grow.
4. **Overall size:** this removes tick boxes and most bundling, but adds grants, the pre-share review and Your Agent's new role. Does Dec 15 still hold?
5. **Starting point:** please work from v0.11, not v0.10, which describes plugins attached to pages. v0.11 is still a draft for today's discussion.

## Open items for Dave W

- Re-run the ChatGPT test on a free account with a multi-file Expert. OpenAI's docs show a different upload route than the Oct 24 test, and no one has tested the `ai.braindrive/` folder.
- Set the light quality minimum for forum posts.
- Rewrite the Business Idea draft as the Start a Business spec.

## After the call

Record the decisions, update the Docs change list and the Memory Files and Installation drafts, and update the Phase 1 doc. An outside review of v0.11 should come once it's settled.