Knowledge, Projects, MD files: what they actually are

If you have only ever used ChatGPT or Claude by typing a question and reading the answer, you have used about ten percent of it. This page explains the other ninety percent in plain English. No jargon. Read it once and the rest of the toolkit makes sense.

A chat vs a set-up space

There are two ways to use these tools.

A chat is a single conversation. You type, it answers, and when you close it, it forgets everything. Fine for a one-off question. Useless as a system, because you re-explain your world every single time you open a new one.

A set-up space is one you build once and reuse. In Claude it is called a Project. In ChatGPT it is called a Custom GPT. Same idea, different name. You set it up once with everything it needs to know about you, and from then on every conversation you start inside it already knows your area, your products, your accounts. You stop re-explaining.

This whole toolkit is about building that set-up space properly.

What "Knowledge" means

Inside a Project or a Custom GPT there is a section called Knowledge. That is where you upload reference files. The AI reads all of them at the start of every conversation in that space.

Think of it as the AI's filing cabinet. Your Territory Brain goes in there. Your voice file goes in there. Your account notes go in there. Anything you want it to know without typing it out again lives in Knowledge.

That is the part most of your market has never touched.

Knowledge vs instructions

Two different boxes, and people mix them up.

Instructions tell the AI how to behave. "Write in Australian English. Be direct. No corporate fluff." Short, about the style and the rules.

Knowledge tells the AI what to know. The files. Your area, your products, your accounts. The facts.

You use both. Instructions for the how, Knowledge for the what.

What an MD file is

MD stands for markdown. An MD file is just a plain text file with a bit of light formatting, headings and bullet points, nothing more. The file name ends in .md instead of .docx or .pdf.

You do not need special software. Open it in Notepad on a PC or TextEdit on a Mac. To make one, copy the AI's output, paste it into a plain text editor, and save it with .md on the end.

Why markdown and not Word or PDF:

• Both Claude and ChatGPT read it cleanly, so the same file works in both with no reformatting.
• You can open it and edit it in seconds when something changes.
• It stays small and simple, so the AI reads it accurately instead of getting lost in formatting.

You can upload PDFs and Word docs into Knowledge too, and they work. But MD is the format you will build your own files in, because it is the easiest to keep up to date.

How it all fits together

Here is the whole system in one line.

A folder of MD files on your computer, uploaded into your Project or Custom GPT's Knowledge, read by every conversation you have in that space.

You will end up with a lot of these files. That is the point, not a problem. One for your territory, one for your voice, one for competitors, one per major account. Keep the master copies in one folder on your machine. When something changes, a win, a price move, a competitor poaching someone, you update the file and re-upload it. The setup stays current instead of going stale the week after you built it.

Build it once. Keep it fed. Every conversation starts knowing your world.