# The Explorers' Manual > A guided path for working with local agents and IdeaSpaces. Ernest leads each step; readers can follow the timeline or branch into practical guides and deeper explanations. Every page here has a Markdown twin: add .md to its address. Built from the manual at commit e6792fd6b075b8dce53c7e7176e6bb61fb21daa7. ## Start here - [The Explorers' Manual](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/index.md): A guided path for working with local agents and IdeaSpaces. Ernest leads each step; readers can follow the timeline or branch into practical guides and deeper explanations. - [Why IdeaSpaces?](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/why.md): Why this exists. The world got complex, the questions worth working on need depth, and a chat window is the wrong shape for depth. Your context matters more than the model, knowledge is a process rather than a possession, and depth needs a place where people and agents can explore together. What is free, and what needs an account. - [An agent is a folder](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/how-it-works.md): See how an agent inhabits a folder of Markdown under git, works from its point of view, and carries knowledge forward between sessions. - [IdeaSpaces integrations](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/integrations.md): Install IdeaSpaces for Claude Code, Cowork, or Pi and keep durable knowledge in ordinary Markdown under git. ## Guides - [Prepare your machine](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/guides/prepare-your-machine.md): Supporting material for installing git, Node, and the IdeaSpaces plugin — written to be handed to your local agent (Claude or Codex), which either does the setup itself or guides you through it one command at a time. You do not need to follow these steps yourself. - [Open this manual with your agent](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/guides/open-this-manual-with-an-agent.md): Bring the Explorers' Manual into a local agent conversation so the agent can guide the reader through the timeline and its deeper trails. - [Check for updates](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/guides/check-for-updates.md): Ask your agent to preview new material from the maintained Explorers' Manual and apply non-conflicting changes only after you agree. Public updates require no IdeaSpaces account. - [Create your first agent](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/guides/create-your-first-agent.md): Ernest's video guide to creating a first agent around a real role, with a checkpoint for putting that agent to work. - [Explore with your agent](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/guides/explore-with-your-agent.md): Work with an agent as a knowledgeable collaborator, not a robot waiting for complete instructions. Bring it an unfinished problem, ask it to reveal relevant aspects and established approaches, then use your ideaspace to make the exploration specific. - [Reflect on your work](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/guides/reflect-on-your-work.md): Pause at a natural stopping point and ask the agent what the work taught you. Review what should be captured, then turn recurring reflection into a skill so each piece of work can improve the next. - [Talk to your agent](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/guides/talk-to-your-agent.md): You do not need commands or special prompts to work in an ideaspace. Tell the agent what you want to accomplish; this page gives ordinary ways to create, shape, reflect, review your agreement after a project, ask what someone means, listen for updates, and work with other people. ## Explore - [Why work locally](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/explore/why-work-locally.md): Local agents work where your files and context already live, reducing the friction of repeatedly carrying your knowledge into isolated chats. - [What is an ideaspace?](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/explore/what-is-an-ideaspace.md): A Space is a lens on work, not the folder that stores it: Repos hold pages, Vaults coordinate, and Maps bring material into view without granting access. Local Spaces work today; hosted Spaces and their invitations and permissions are still being built. - [What is Git?](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/explore/what-is-git.md): Git records chosen versions of files so people can review how knowledge changed over time, return to earlier understanding, and collaborate without overwriting each other. - [How working with an agent changes the flow](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/explore/how-work-changes.md): Working with an agent shifts part of the work toward making knowledge, judgment, and context explicit enough for the agent to use. - [Note](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/explore/notes.md): A Note is a page worth keeping — one piece of understanding that both people and agents can read. It stays readable outside any one app, making it simple to keep, move, and share. - [What is a skill?](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/explore/skills.md): A skill is a way of working you have written down once so your agent does it the same way every time. Your agent arrives with some; you make the rest from the corrections you keep repeating. Skill is how to do; taste stays with you. - [Knowledge keeps moving](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/explore/knowledge-keeps-moving.md): Knowledge is not a finished collection of facts but an ongoing process of understanding, deciding, observing, and updating. Notes capture where understanding stands at a moment; reflection brings experience back into the next version. - [How changes travel](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/explore/how-sharing-works.md): Thinking happens locally, captures are shared through a remote, and the agent can check what changed before bringing anything into your work. When two people changed the same understanding differently, the conflict becomes a conversation rather than something the machine silently decides. ## Reference - [Language](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/reference/language.md): Short definitions for the ordinary words used throughout the Explorers' Manual: agent, ideaspace, Note, capture, reflection, local, remote, Map, Exchange, skill, and Agreement. ## Developers - [Ideaspace Protocol for developers](https://manual.ideaspaces.xyz/developers.md): Evaluate the open Ideaspace Protocol, inspect its repository shape, and build a conformant agent surface.