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Enroll the agents

The screen alone shows files. Records, draft reactions, and posts come from three enrolled components: minitrue files records, speakwrite writes drafts, thinkpol posts approved drafts. They run on systemd user units and default to the claude CLI (thinkpol excepted; it is plain Go). Another agent CLI works too: Use another agent.

Enroll

telescreen install                 # minitrue, speakwrite, thinkpol
telescreen install thinkpol        # one component
telescreen install --dry-run       # print the plan without writing
telescreen install --force         # restore the shipped skills over your edits

What it writes where

Path Contents
~/.claude/skills/ the agent skills; seeds you may edit, re-installs keep your edits, --force restores the shipped versions
~/.config/telescreen.yaml the pipeline config; install seeds a missing component key with agent: claude and never touches existing keys, --force included
~/.config/systemd/user/ the units; ExecStart points at the installing binary
${XDG_STATE_HOME:-$HOME/.local/state}/recdep/ the state dirs, created 0700

The installer also enables the units: a timer for minitrue (every 10 minutes) and path units for speakwrite (intents/*.intent) and thinkpol (intents/*.publish).

Editing the seeded skills is how you extend what the producer watches: Add a watch.

Identity

minitrue needs to know who you are. Create ~/.config/minitrue.env with plain KEY=value lines:

SLACK_USER_ID=U0000000000   # your Slack user id
GH_LOGIN=your-gh-login      # gh @me must resolve to it
LINEAR_ASSIGNEE=me
REPO=owner/repo             # the GitHub repo to scope PR watches to

Two more files matter, both optional at first:

  • ~/.config/telescreen.yaml: the agent choices per component (binary, args, instructions, allowlist, timeout, action map). The seeded file is a plain claude setup.
  • ~/.config/thinkpol.env: posting credentials (SLACK_TOKEN, LINEAR_API_KEY). Secrets; chmod 600 it. GitHub posting uses your authenticated gh and needs no key here.

Every key and default lives in the Configuration reference; the Configuration guide covers the tasks.

From source

make install builds the binary into ~/.local/bin and runs its installer, for development or by choice.

Next

Your first record: the whole loop, on the demo seed.