Multi-Project Setup

Catalyst supports completely isolated contexts for different clients and projects using HumanLayer profiles.

Overview

Each profile points to a different thoughts repository, keeping contexts completely isolated:

• Personal work — Your own projects
• Client A — One client’s projects
• Client B — Another client’s projects
• Open source — Community projects

Quick Reference

# List profiles
humanlayer thoughts profile list

# Create new profile
humanlayer thoughts profile create acme --repo ~/clients/acme/thoughts

# Initialize project with profile
cd /path/to/acme-project
humanlayer thoughts init --profile acme

# Check current status
humanlayer thoughts status

Adding a New Client

# Create profile
humanlayer thoughts profile create acme --repo ~/clients/acme/thoughts

# Initialize a project with this profile
cd /path/to/acme-project
humanlayer thoughts init --profile acme

How Auto-Detection Works

HumanLayer maintains repoMappings that map working directories to profiles:

1. Run humanlayer thoughts init --profile acme in /path/to/project
2. HumanLayer records the mapping: /path/to/project → acme profile
3. Future humanlayer thoughts commands in that directory auto-detect the profile
4. No need to specify --profile on every command

Repository Layout

Each profile gets its own isolated repository:

~/thoughts/                        # Personal (default)
~/clients/acme/thoughts/           # ACME client
~/clients/megacorp/thoughts/       # MegaCorp client

Each repository has the same internal structure:

thoughts/
├── repos/              # Project-specific
│   ├── project-a/
│   │   ├── ryan/
│   │   └── shared/
│   └── project-b/
│       ├── ryan/
│       └── shared/
└── global/            # Cross-project
    ├── ryan/
    └── shared/

Daily Workflow

Starting Work on a Personal Project

cd ~/code-repos/my-project
humanlayer thoughts init --profile coalesce-labs
/create-plan  # Works as normal

Starting Work on a Client Project

cd ~/code-repos/github/acme/project
humanlayer thoughts init --profile acme
/create-plan  # Uses client-specific context

Backup Strategy

Personal thoughts: Push to GitHub as a private repo — it’s your IP.

Client thoughts: Check your contract/NDA. Options:

• Keep local only (good for sensitive work)
• Push to your private repo
• Push to the client’s organization (if allowed)

cd ~/clients/acme/thoughts
gh repo create ryan/acme-thoughts --private --source=. --push

Best Practices

Use descriptive profile names (acme, coalesce-labs, google-consulting) rather than vague ones (client1, work, temp).

Initialize projects immediately when starting work in a new directory.