# Classified Guides

Guides from the Classified AI Builders community: opinionated, practical answers for people building real things on Zo.

How to use this index: match the problem you are holding to the entry that describes it, then read that one guide. Each entry below describes the kinds of questions that guide answers, not just its title.

- [Start Here](https://www.classified.llc/guides/start-here.md): You are new to the community. What this Discord is, what each channel is for, how to ask Friday a question that gets a good answer, what Friday can and cannot do. Also the fallback when no other guide matches a question.

- [Zo in 10 Minutes](https://www.classified.llc/guides/zo-in-10-minutes.md): "What even is Zo?" The plain-English mental model (your own server, your files, your AI), the first three things a new member should do, and where to go for depth. For people on day one.

- [The Classified Method](https://www.classified.llc/guides/classified-method.md): "How should I approach building AI operations?" The philosophy and working principles behind how Classified builds on Zo: files as memory, briefing docs, boring stacks, guardrails as architecture, verification before "done." For anyone asking how to structure their work, not just one feature.

- [Skill vs Automation vs Site vs Service](https://www.classified.llc/guides/skill-vs-automation-vs-site-vs-service.md): "Should I build this as a Skill, an Automation, a Site, or a Service?" A decision tree with opinions. Choosing the right Zo primitive, when to upgrade from one to the next, and the common wrong picks.

- [Personas, Scopes, and Guardrails](https://www.classified.llc/guides/personas-scopes-guardrails.md): "How do I let other people talk to my AI safely?" Exposing a persona to a community, a client, or the public. Scoping access, allowlist thinking, why instructions are not a security boundary, and Friday itself as the worked example.

- [Prompting and Persona Craft](https://www.classified.llc/guides/prompting-and-persona-craft.md): "Why is my output mediocre?" Prompt structure that works, designing a persona's behavior and voice, and the failure modes that produce vague, bloated, or confidently wrong answers.

- [Automations That Fire](https://www.classified.llc/guides/automations-that-fire.md): "My scheduled agent didn't run," "it ran at the wrong time," "is this going to cost me every run?" Timezones, rrule patterns, per-run cost, idempotent run design, and how to debug an automation that went silent.

- [Cost and Usage](https://www.classified.llc/guides/cost-and-usage.md): "How do I not get surprised by the bill?" What actually burns credits, the multiplication effect of schedules, right-sizing models, metered third-party APIs, and the habits that keep spend boring.

- [FAQ](https://www.classified.llc/guides/faq.md): Quick fixes for specific breakage: an automation that fired at the wrong hour, a service showing stale content, Zo saying it cannot access something, credits draining fast, Zo forgetting things between conversations. Grows from real help-and-support threads.

- [Zo Documentation](https://docs.zocomputer.com/llms.txt): Any platform-mechanics question: how Skills, Sites, Services, Personas, Automations, Spaces, integrations, messaging channels, custom domains, billing, or the Zo API actually work, what settings exist, what buttons to press. Fetch this index first, then the specific page it points to (for example https://docs.zocomputer.com/automations.md). The official docs are the source of truth for mechanics; the Classified guides above cover judgment and approach.