Attune · DIY Practice

Set Up & Brief Your AI

Everything to get going — free, paid, or fully private — and exactly what to tell your agent, beyond your AOS.

▶  Prefer to watch someone do it?  A friendly beginner overview of ChatGPT, Gemini & Claude — free on YouTube.
01Pick your edition

All three have a free start

Any of these works — we're tool-agnostic. Free is plenty to begin. Paid (usually around $20/month) mostly buys you more: more usage, memory, bigger documents. Plans and model names change fast — check the current page before you rely on specifics.

ChatGPT · OpenAI
Free gets you
Real conversations, some file/image work, limited use of the best model.
Paid adds
Much more usage, memory across chats, file tools, and custom GPTs.
Claude · Anthropic
Free gets you
Strong conversations with daily limits; great for writing and thinking.
Paid adds
More usage, Projects (persistent context you set once), bigger documents.
Gemini · Google
Free gets you
Conversations plus tie-ins to Google search and apps.
Paid adds
More usage, deeper Google Workspace integration, bigger context.

On free: paste your AOS at the start of each new chat. On paid: use memory / Projects so it remembers you.

01·bDon't trust the big three?

Private & open-source options

You don't have to hand your thinking to a big company. A few ways to keep it yours — everything in this guide still works with them:

Run it on your own computer — fully private
LM Studio · Jan
Friendly desktop apps that run open models (like Llama and Mistral) offline. Nothing ever leaves your device.
Ollama
A little more hands-on — run open models with one command. Also fully local and free.
Use it anonymously online
DuckDuckGo AI Chat
No account, and they don't train on you — a private way to try a few models in your browser.
Mistral · Le Chat
European, open-weight models, privacy-forward.

The trade-off: local and open models are a touch less polished than the big three — but they're private, free, and yours. That's often the right trade.

02The briefing

What to tell it — besides your AOS

Your AOS says who you are. That's the background. For each task, also give it these five. Copy this, fill the brackets, paste it right after your AOS:

Working from my AOS above, here's this task: • The job: [one clear thing] • Context: [the background or materials it needs for this — paste them] • Output: [the exact shape you want back — a draft / a list / a table / 3 options; and how long] • Guardrails: read-only; I approve before anything leaves; don't send, post, or pay for me; if you're unsure, ask instead of guessing. • Good looks like: [an example, if you have one]
03Your first session

Step by step — copy & paste

1. Open your AI. Paste your AOS first:

Here's my AOS — work from this. Everything you make for me should reflect it: [paste your AOS, or just your AOS sentence]

2. Give it one simple job, using the briefing from Step 2. (Reword an email · tidy a messy note into a to-do list · 3 title options · summarize a doc.)

3. Read what it made. Tell it what's off, in plain words — you don't need fancy prompts:

Closer. Two things: [what's off]. Keep [what worked]. Try again.

4. When it's good, save it. Note one thing to add to your AOS so it's better next time.

5. Next chat, do it again — paste AOS + briefing (free), or lean on memory/Projects (paid).

That's the whole loop: AOS (who you are) → briefing (this task) → make → notice → tweak. Start with simple things. The fancy stuff is just more of this.
Attune · Shape AI · attunecoachinggroup.com