Personal Brain Retainer · Light
Keep the brain current. Keep it working.
Month-to-month. Cancel any time with 30 days notice.
Personal Brain Install clients whose brain is mostly stable and whose work doesn't require active new-capability development month-to-month.
The lighter retainer tier. Monthly corpus updates, skill tuning, break/fix support. For people whose brain is mostly stable and who want a low-touch ongoing relationship.
When the Light retainer is the right choice.
After a Personal Brain Install, the brain is built, deployed, and working. The 30-day post-install support covers the initial settling. After that, two things determine whether you need ongoing care: how often your corpus changes, and how often the underlying AI tools change.
The Light retainer is calibrated for brains that don’t change much month-to-month. Your work is consistent. Your corpus grows organically through the capture surface but doesn’t need restructuring. You’re not asking the brain to do new things; you’re asking it to keep doing what it already does well.
For that profile, $497/mo covers the maintenance work — corpus updates, skill tunings as the models behind your AI tools update, break/fix when something stops working. It’s the minimum ongoing relationship that keeps the brain from drifting.
What's included
In the $497/mo.
Corpus updates
Monthly review of material added through your capture surface. Re-structured where helpful, kept retrievable in the right shape.
Monthly skill tuning
When Claude, ChatGPT, or your other AI tools update and affect skill behavior, I retune to fit. Skills that worked six months ago slowly degrade without this.
Break/fix support
MCP server hiccups, subdomain drops, Cloudflare Access misconfigurations. One business day response. Most fixes are 30 minutes, no extra invoice.
Uptime monitoring
The brain is monitored. If something goes down outside business hours, I see it before you do and fix proactively when possible.
Quarterly check-in
30-minute call once a quarter. Brief — just enough to confirm the brain is serving you and surface upgrade triggers.
“Light is reactive maintenance. Standard is proactive evolution. Both are right choices; only one is the right one for you.”
Already have an Install?
Start the retainer the first of next month.
No commitment past 30-day notice. Upgrade or downgrade between Light and Standard any month, pro-rated.
Light vs. Standard.
The simple decision tree: if your work is relatively stable month-to-month and your brain doesn’t need new capabilities frequently, Light is enough. If you’re actively evolving how you use AI and want new skills added to your brain quarterly (or more often), Standard is the right tier.
Most brains start on Light after the 30-day post-install window. Some upgrade to Standard within a few months as they realize they want more proactive expansion. Some never upgrade because Light is genuinely all they need. Both are valid outcomes.
What Light doesn’t include: new skill development beyond tweaks (that’s Standard or a separate engagement), architectural changes to the corpus, coaching or strategic input (the Coaching Retainer is the right shape for that).
Common questions
Asked, answered.
Is the retainer required after the Install?
No. The brain is yours outright after the Install. You can run it without a retainer indefinitely. The retainer exists for clients who want me actively keeping it tuned vs. letting it drift slowly. Most clients pick it up; some don’t. Both are fine.
What's a "break/fix" incident look like?
Most common: an MCP server endpoint stops responding because of a configuration drift on Cloudflare. Or your Claude project loses connection to the brain because of an Anthropic-side change. Or your capture surface (Telegram bot, iOS Shortcut) breaks because of an OS update. Most of these are 30-minute fixes; the retainer means I do them without sending a separate invoice.
Can I switch between Light and Standard?
Yes, any month. Upgrade for a month when you have a project that requires more attention, downgrade when you don’t. Pro-rated within the month.
What about the infrastructure pass-through cost?
Separate. Your Cloudflare bill ($0-$20/mo typical) and any other pass-through (Twilio for SMS, LLM tokens if applicable) are billed by those vendors directly to you. The retainer covers my time, not the infrastructure.
Adjacent paths
Where this connects.
Already have an Install? Just email me.
The retainer is for existing Personal Brain Install clients. If you haven’t done the Install yet, start with the Diagnostic Call. If you have, drop me a note and we’ll start the retainer the first of the next month.
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