Overview
What's In This Guide
The 5 tools every person dangerously good with AI runs every day
A one-page cheat sheet: what each tool is, what you miss without it, what it costs
The exact setup for all 5, including the install commands you paste into Claude
The two tools almost nobody has set up yet (Composio and Hermes)
How the stack works as one connected machine, not 5 separate apps
Start Here
5 Tools, One Machine
If you are not using these 5 tools, you will not be dangerously good with AI. I know that sounds blunt. It is also true.
Here is the thing most people get wrong. They collect tools and never connect them. The people getting absurd results do the opposite. They run a small stack where every tool feeds the others. Claude is the brain. Wispr Flow feeds it context. Hermes runs the jobs. Composio wires it to your apps. Apify hands it the data.
Part 1 is the cheat sheet, so you can see the whole stack at a glance. Part 2 is the setup for each one, with the exact commands you paste in. Take it one tool at a time.
Part 1
The Cheat Sheet
Each tool, what it actually does, what you are missing without it, and what it costs. Skim this first, then set them up below.
Claude Code / Cowork
What it is: Your daily driver. The one place you run everything out of.
What you're missing: You're still copy-pasting between a chatbot and your real work. This builds, edits, and automates directly on your computer.
Cost: Free to start. Included with Claude Pro ($20/mo).
Wispr Flow
What it is: AI voice-to-text that works inside any app.
What you're missing: You're typing short, lazy prompts because typing is slow. Talking is 4x faster, so you give AI way more context and get way better outputs.
Cost: Free Basic (2,000 words/week). Pro $12/mo annual.
Hermes Agent
What it is: An AI agent that never sleeps. You text it from your phone.
What you're missing: Your AI only works when your laptop is open and you're driving it. This runs jobs on a schedule, in the background, while you live your life.
Cost: Free and open source. You only pay for model tokens (pennies).
Composio
What it is: One MCP that connects Claude to all your other apps.
What you're missing: You're wiring up 50 separate connections one at a time. This is a single connection that opens up 500+ apps at once.
Cost: Free (currently in beta).
Apify
What it is: Gives Claude the ability to scrape and pull data from almost anywhere.
What you're missing: Your AI has no live data, so it guesses. This feeds it real data from Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, Google Maps, and more.
Cost: Free tier with $5 in credits every month.
Part 2
The Setup
One tool at a time. Install it, connect it, then run the day-one prompt to feel what it does. You do not have to do all 5 today.
Claude Code / Cowork
Your Daily DriverThis is the one place you run everything out of. Not a chatbot you ask questions. A workspace that builds, edits, organizes, and automates directly on your computer.
If you think something cannot be done inside Claude Code or Cowork, think again. With the right direction, these two bring almost anything to life. Cowork is the friendly desktop app (no terminal). Claude Code is the terminal version with more power. Start with Cowork if you are newer.
Set it up
Get a Claude plan at claude.ai. The $20/mo Pro plan covers Cowork and Claude Code. Cowork lives right inside the Claude desktop app.
Want the terminal version? Install Claude Code with one command, then run it from any folder.
$ npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code Sign in with your Anthropic account when it prompts you, and you are in.
Bonus move
If you use Claude Code, pair it with VS Code or Cursor. You get a real window to see the files Claude is touching while it works, instead of staring at a terminal. Both are free to download.
Run this on day one
"What are the tasks I do every day that you could automate for me? Pick the easiest one and build it."
"Look at this folder and organize it for me. Ask before you move anything."
Wispr Flow
Voice to TextAI voice-to-text that works inside any app. You press a hotkey, talk, and it types what you said wherever your cursor is. Claude, Gmail, Slack, anywhere.
I have used this for 9 months and saved hundreds of hours. I communicate about 4x faster than typing. But speed is the smaller win. The real one: when talking is this easy, you give AI the full context every time, so your outputs get dramatically better. More context in, better results out.
Set it up
- 1
Download Wispr Flow at wisprflow.ai. It runs on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. Every new account gets a 14-day free trial of Pro.
- 2
Set your hotkey during onboarding. This is the key you hold to talk. Pick something easy to reach, like the function key.
- 3
Open any app, hold your hotkey, and just talk. It types as you speak. Try it first by dictating a full prompt into Claude.
The cost, honestly
The free Basic plan gives you 2,000 words a week on desktop, which is enough to test it. If you use it daily like I do, you will blow past that in a couple of sessions. Pro is $12/mo billed annually (or $15/mo monthly) for unlimited words. Worth every cent for me.
Run this on day one
"Use Wispr Flow to talk through a full prompt with all the context: who it is for, the background, and exactly what you want. Then watch how much better the output is."
Hermes Agent
The Agent That Never SleepsHermes is an AI agent from Nous Research that you text from your phone, whenever you want. It lives on a tiny server, remembers everything, and writes new skills for itself every time it finishes a task.
The difference from Claude Code: Claude Code works while you drive it. Hermes works while you are gone. It is perfect for anything you want done on a recurring basis without keeping your computer open. Monitoring your inbox. Building reports. Running competitor research overnight.
Set it up (the no-hardware path)
- 1
Spin up a cloud computer at orgo.ai. Create a workspace, click "new computer," and a remote desktop boots in under a minute. No Mac Mini required.
- 2
Open the terminal inside that computer, install Claude Code, then tell it: "install the Hermes agent into this VM using the latest docs from nousresearch.com." The agent installs the agent. If anything breaks, tell Claude Code to fix it.
- 3
Connect it to Telegram. Run the Hermes Telegram setup, drop in a bot token from BotFather, and now you can text your agent from anywhere. Your phone is the interface.
Want to run it locally instead? The official quickstart from Nous Research is one command on Mac, Linux, or Windows. Follow it at hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs. Pair it with OpenRouter as your model provider to keep token costs near zero.
The cost, honestly
Hermes itself is free and open source. You only pay for the model tokens it runs on, and with OpenRouter that can be pennies. The Orgo cloud computer is pay-as-you-go. One person in the community runs his whole stack for around $10 every 5 days.
Text it this on day one
"What is the most important thing for me to work on today?"
"What is one tool you could build me tonight that would make my life easier tomorrow?"
Composio
The One Nobody's Heard OfThis is the payoff tool. The one hardly anyone has set up yet. Normally, to connect Claude to your apps, you wire up a separate connection for each one. Gmail here, Notion there, Slack over there. Fifty apps means fifty setups.
Composio flips that. You connect their one MCP, and Claude can reach 500+ of your apps through it. One connection instead of fifty. In the fast-moving world of AI, that makes wiring your tools to any model so much easier. The easiest way to use Composio is through their free app called Rube.
Set it up (Claude Code)
Add the Rube MCP to Claude Code with one command in your terminal.
$ claude mcp add --transport http rube -s user "https://rube.app/mcp" Restart Claude Code, then run /mcp, select rube, and choose Authenticate. A browser tab opens. Sign in once.
Connect your apps. When you ask Claude to use one (say Gmail), Rube prompts you to authorize it once. After that, it just works.
On Claude Desktop instead?
If you are on a paid Claude plan, open Settings, go to Connectors, choose Add custom connector, and paste https://rube.app/mcp. Then hit Connect and sign in. Rube is free right now, with thousands of free credits to start.
Run this on day one
"Using Rube, check my Gmail for anything important I missed today and summarize it."
"Using Rube, create a task in my Notion (or Linear) from this note: [paste]."
Apify
The Data LayerConnect Apify to Claude and your AI can scrape and pull data from almost anywhere on the internet. Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, Google Maps, Facebook. You name it, it pulls it.
Here is why it matters. AI with no data is slop. An AI armed with all the data in the world is a different animal. Apify is the tool that turns Claude from a thing that knows stuff into a thing that goes and gets stuff.
Set it up (Claude Code)
Sign up free at console.apify.com/sign-up. No credit card. The free tier includes $5 in credits every month, enough for hundreds of small scrapes.
Add the Apify MCP to Claude Code with one command.
$ claude mcp add --transport http apify https://mcp.apify.com Restart Claude. The first time it uses Apify, a browser tab opens to authorize. One click, and Claude can reach the whole scraper library.
Keep your bill at zero
Always tell Claude to cap the run, like "pull 30 items, not the whole profile." And for anything big, add "estimate the cost first and check with me if it is over $1." The estimate takes 2 seconds. A runaway scrape can cost $30.
Run this on day one
"Using the Apify MCP, pull the last 30 posts from [@competitor] and tell me what hook patterns are working. Cap it at 30 items."
Want the deep dive?
I wrote a full Apify 101 with 7 copy-paste prompts you can run tomorrow. Grab it at zachdoesai.com/guides/apify-setup.
The Stack
How the 5 Work Together
Claude Code / Cowork
The brain. Where you run everything.
Wispr Flow
The input. Feeds the brain more context, faster.
Hermes
The worker. Runs jobs when you are not there.
Composio
The wiring. Connects the brain to all your apps.
Apify
The data. Feeds the brain everything on the internet.
Run them as one chain. You talk to Claude through Wispr Flow, so it has full context. Composio lets it act inside your real apps. Apify feeds it live data. Hermes runs the whole thing on a schedule while you sleep. That is the difference between using AI and being dangerously good with it.
You do not need 20 AI tools. You need these 5, pointed at the same brain.
Work with Me
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