Initialize a Project

Prerequisites

1. Install Hyprlayer
2. Configure your AI tool
3. Have a thoughts repository (or let Hyprlayer create one)

If your team already has a shared thoughts repository, clone it first:

gh repo clone <org>/<thoughts-repo> ~/thoughts

Initialize

Navigate to your project and run:

cd ~/Projects/my-project
hyprlayer thoughts init

First-Time Setup

If this is your first time running init, Hyprlayer will walk you through initial configuration:

1. Thoughts repository location — Where your thoughts are stored (default: ~/thoughts)
2. Repos directory name — Subdirectory for project-specific thoughts (default: repos)
3. Global directory name — Subdirectory for cross-project thoughts (default: global)
4. Username — Your identifier for personal thoughts (default: system username)

What Init Does

1. Creates the thoughts directory structure in your thoughts repository
2. Sets up symlinks from thoughts/ in your project to the thoughts repository
3. Installs git hooks for protection and auto-sync
4. Saves the repository mapping to your global config

After initialization, your project will have:

my-project/
  └── thoughts/
       ├── <username>/     → ~/thoughts/repos/my-project/<username>/
       ├── shared/         → ~/thoughts/repos/my-project/shared/
       └── global/         → ~/thoughts/global/

Using a Profile

If you have multiple thoughts repositories (e.g., work and personal), use a profile:

hyprlayer thoughts init --profile work

See Profiles for more on managing multiple thoughts repositories.

Non-Interactive Mode

Skip prompts by specifying the directory name:

hyprlayer thoughts init --directory my-project

Force Reinitialize

hyprlayer thoughts init --force

Reconfigures thoughts for a project that’s already been initialized. Also reinstalls agent files.

Git Hooks

Initialization installs two git hooks:

Pre-commit Hook

Prevents accidentally committing the thoughts/ directory to your code repository. If staged thoughts files are detected, they are unstaged and the commit is blocked.

Post-commit Hook

Automatically syncs thoughts to the thoughts repository after each commit. Runs in the background so it doesn’t slow down your workflow.

Both hooks are versioned and will be updated when you run init again. Existing non-Hyprlayer hooks are backed up to <hook>.old.

Remove Thoughts

To remove thoughts setup from a repository:

hyprlayer thoughts uninit

This removes the thoughts/ symlink structure and the repository mapping from your config. The actual thoughts content in your thoughts repository is preserved.

Next Steps

Start using the development workflow.