Advanced Topics — Claude Desktop

Patterns that take the wiki from useful to indispensable. Each section is independent — pick what applies to you.

Your voice file

A VOICE.md file in your wiki root tells Claude who you are — your writing style, areas of expertise, how you like information structured, and what you're trying to build. Once it exists, Claude reads it and personalizes every response to match you rather than writing in a generic voice.

To create one, paste this:

Create a VOICE.md file in my wiki root. Ask me a series of short questions to understand: my writing style preferences, my areas of expertise (so you know what to explain vs. what to assume I know), how I like information structured, and my main goal for this wiki. Then write the file based on my answers.

Once the file exists, add a line to CLAUDE.md telling Claude to read it at the start of every session. Paste this:

Update CLAUDE.md to include an instruction to read VOICE.md at the start of every session before doing anything else.

VOICE.md is meant to evolve. When Claude writes something that sounds off, tell it to update the file.

Ingesting from external sources

Claude Desktop can connect directly to Google Drive, Gmail, and other services via its connector settings. Once connected, you can ingest content without copying and pasting.

Google Drive & Google Docs

Go to Claude Desktop settings and enable the Google Drive connector. Then paste:

I want to ingest a Google Doc into my wiki. Here's the link: [paste link]. Summarize it, save it to my sources folder, update index.md, and cross-link any relevant pages.

Gmail

Enable the Gmail connector in Claude Desktop settings. Then paste:

I want to capture an email thread into my wiki. [Describe the thread or paste the subject line.] Summarize the key points, save it to my sources folder, and link it from index.md.

Other connectors

Claude Desktop supports additional connectors (Notion, Asana, and others) through its settings. The pattern is the same: enable the connector, then describe to Claude what you want ingested and where it should live in the wiki.

Power prompts

These prompts work well once your wiki has a few weeks of content in it.

Surface hidden connections

Read through my wiki and find non-obvious connections between topics I haven't explicitly linked. Write a short synthesis page for the most interesting one.

Weekly review

Review everything added to the wiki this week. Summarize what I've been focused on, flag anything that contradicts older notes, and suggest one thing worth exploring further.

Extract action items

Scan my recent sources and notes for any action items, commitments, or follow-ups I mentioned. Collect them into a single TODO.md page.

Turn a wiki page into a draft

Take the notes on [topic] and turn them into a clean first draft I could share with someone else. Read VOICE.md first and write in my voice.