Your Nexus workspace

Walter, this is where we start building the Whiskey Thief Nexus: your analytical data plus the context needed to reason about it, made usable through tools you and your Claude can work with. It is yours. It runs in accounts Whiskey Thief owns and pays for, under rules you write, and it keeps working without DoMT.

The first draft of the spec is waiting for you in Spine, our shared writing space. The steps below get you and your Claude connected, then set up the two accounts the Nexus will live in.

Setup, step by step

1. Accept the Spine invite

   Jeremy will send you an invite link. Open it, and create a passkey when Spine asks. That is how you will sign in to Spine.

2. Install the DoMT plugin in Claude

   Jeremy will also send you a plugin file (a .zip). On claude.ai, open the plugins page at this address:

   https://claude.ai/new#customize/plugins/yours

   Choose Add, then Upload plugin, and pick the file. You should see DoMT for Whiskey Thief (it may show as Domt whiskey thief), by DoMT (Jeremy Roush), with 4 skills, and a toggle that should be on.

   The plugin teaches your Claude how we work in Spine and how to help with setup.

3. Connect Spine to your Claude

   First, if you have ever signed in to Spine as someone else in this browser, sign out at spine.zice.app, or use a private window.

   After uploading, this address opens the plugin's Connectors tab:

   https://claude.ai/new#customize/plugins/yours/id/domt-whiskey-thief%40My%20Uploads/connectors

   Or, on the plugin's page, open the Connectors tab yourself. Next to spine, click Connect.

   A dialog titled Add custom connector opens, already filled in with spine and https://spine.zice.app/mcp. Leave the defaults as they are (Sign in now; Register automatically; no headers). Scroll to the bottom of the dialog and click Add. Then sign in with your Spine passkey when asked (Touch ID or your phone).

   When it works, the plugin's Connectors tab shows spine · Connected · Custom.

   The note "Only use connectors from developers you trust" is standard for every custom connector.

   Suggestion, optional: fewer approval pop-ups. In Customize › Connectors › spine, under Tool permissions, there are two groups: Read-only tools (already Always allow) and Write/delete tools (set to Needs approval).

   You can set Write/delete tools to Always allow. As a contributor, your Claude cannot change the text. It can add notes, questions, discussions and suggested edits, and nothing changes until Jeremy accepts. A few tools also touch shared working state, such as tasks, the publication log and release comments. Every write is labelled as yours.

   It's your choice. Needs approval is fine if you'd rather see each one.

4. GitHub, for the Nexus code

   • Create a GitHub account at github.com/signup, or use one you have, and turn on two-factor authentication.
   • Create an organization for Whiskey Thief. A short lowercase name works best, such as whiskeythief or whiskey-thief-distilling, if it is free. It becomes part of web addresses. Your choice.
   • Inside it, create a private repository for the Nexus.

5. DigitalOcean, where the Nexus will run

   • Create an account at cloud.digitalocean.com in Whiskey Thief's name, with the company's own billing, and turn on two-factor authentication.
   • Create a project for the Nexus, add an SSH key from your computer, and set a billing alert.
   • Don't create a server (a "droplet") or anything else that costs money yet. That comes later, with your yes.

Your Claude can walk you through steps 4 and 5. Once steps 1 to 3 are done, start a new chat and paste the prompt below. Later, you can type /spine or /whiskey-thief in a chat, or just ask.

A prompt for your Claude

It checks that everything is connected, shows you the draft, and then helps with GitHub and DigitalOcean one step at a time.

Hi. I'm Walter Zausch, owner of Whiskey Thief. Jeremy Roush at DoMT has set up a workspace for us. Please confirm it works, then help me set up GitHub and DigitalOcean.

1. Check that the Spine connector is connected. In Spine, first declare yourself as the maker of your writes (kind: model, name: "Walter's Claude", with your model id), so your notes are labelled as yours, not mine. Then confirm you are on the manuscript jeremy/whiskey-thief (it should open there on its own).

2. Open chapter 1, "Whiskey Thief Analytical and Context Nexus, Spec 1", and summarize its "At a glance" section for me in a few lines.

3. Tell me my role on that manuscript (I expect contributor) and what it lets us do. Don't change anything in Spine yet.

4. Check that the DoMT plugin is installed and tell me which skills it gives you. Use its kamal-deploy skill for what follows.

5. Then walk me through these, one step at a time, and wait for me after each one:
   GitHub: my account with two-factor authentication on, an organization for Whiskey Thief, and a private repository for the Nexus.
   DigitalOcean: an account in Whiskey Thief's name with the company's own billing, two-factor authentication, a project for the Nexus, an SSH key from my computer, and a billing alert. Don't create a droplet, database or anything else that costs money unless I say yes first.

Never ask me to paste a password, private key or recovery code into this chat. If something doesn't work, tell me exactly what you saw, so I can pass it on to Jeremy.

If you get stuck