# 🐢 Saw us at Burning Man? Fork This Camp — 3 steps, yours forever

*You're pre-sold — we handed you a sticker, a meal, or a moment on the
dust, and you want this for* your *camp. So here, have the fork. No pitch,
no signup, no platform to choose today.*

The whole thing is a gift — **CC0, steal it, we mean it.** 🤙

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## The three steps

### 1. Fork the repo
Or just download it — it's CC0, it's yours the moment you touch it.

### 2. Copy the starter soul, fill in the `[BRACKETS]`
Open [START-HERE.md](START-HERE.md), grab the starter soul (the **Agent
Instructions** block in [`run.md`](run.md)), and fill in the `[BRACKETS]`
with your camp's facts — name, dates, headcount, your kitchen and shade in
plain words. 20 minutes, no platforms to pick, nothing to install. Rough
is fine — the campmate grows with you.

### 3. Paste it into whatever AI you already talk to
Then ask: **"what are we forgetting?"**

That's it. You met Terri. Now go raise your own.

Then make it yours — rename it, teach it your inside jokes, let it grow a
personality. Camp agents are like camps: **the fork is the point.** 🍴

And when it's alive, tell us — there's a **[list of camps running forked
agents](FORKS.md)**, and yours belongs on it. The *"I forked it"* signal
is how the gift travels. 🐢🌺

**[Open an "I forked it! 🐢" issue](https://github.com/shakaleikaumaka/turtle-ops/issues/new?title=I%20forked%20it!%20%F0%9F%90%A2&body=Camp%20name%3A%20%0AAgent%20name%20(if%20it%20has%20one)%3A%20%0AWhere%20you%27re%20camping%20(optional)%3A%20%0AAnything%20you%20want%20us%20to%20know%3A%20)** — camp name is enough. Nobody tracks open-source gifts; your signal helps the next camp trust this. Fly blind no more.

---

## 🥣 Then feed it the real list (subtract, don't blank-page)

Blank pages are scary. Subtracting is fun. So start from **our** taxonomy,
not an empty template:

1. Open [`inventory-starter.json`](inventory-starter.json) — ~40 rows
   carrying the whole status taxonomy, the ⚠️ flag discipline, and the
   owner column.
2. Save a copy. **Delete every line your camp doesn't need.** Keep what
   fits. Rename what's almost-right. You'll learn the schema by erasing it.
3. Paste or attach what's left to your campmate. It now knows your camp
   better than any single human does.

(The full 277-item live list — [`inventory-data.json`](inventory-data.json)
— stays in the kit as the receipts: what a real camp looks like at full
build. Read it, steal from it, just don't start from it. Nobody should
have to delete 250 rows.)

Want the tested wisdom too? Feed it [`field-guide.md`](field-guide.md) —
water math, propane ceilings, cold-chain tiers, all learned on real dust.

---

## 🎓 Optional victory lap: graduate to persistence

A pasted prompt forgets when the chat ends. When you want your campmate to
*remember across conversations*, keep schedules, and build dashboards,
that's when platforms matter — a retention question, not an acquisition
question. The soul is identical everywhere. When that day comes, the
quickstarts are in the appendix:
[Taurus](quickstart-taurus.md) (where Terri herself lives — full
disclosure, Serge is our friend and we're biased, honestly) ·
[Claude Projects](quickstart-claude.md) · [Custom GPT](quickstart-gpt.md).

---

## 🏜️ Before you drive to the playa

Playa WiFi is dust. **Export your campmate's brain to one file** before you
leave the default world — ask it to dump its memory, decisions, and
inventory snapshot into a single document, and save it offline. That's not
a bandwidth hack; it's a **safety feature** — the plan survives the
network.

Grab [`camp-agent-offline.html`](camp-agent-offline.html): the whole kit —
soul, memory template, field numbers, starter inventory — in one
ultra-light file that opens on any phone with zero signal.

And remember the safety model: **your campmate remembers the plan; your
humans own the plan.** Every safety answer ends with *"confirm with the
camp lead."* 🛟

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*Move Slow & Bite Things. 🐢 · Fork freely. Gift forward. — Terrible Turtle Camp 🌺*