Personal Canon File: The One Document Your AI Should Read Before Helping You
Before an AI can help with your work, it needs to know what already belongs to you.
Not your resume. Not your bio. Not a motivational summary of your brand. Your canon: the body of work, language, arguments, artifacts, references, and refusals that make a new output recognizably yours instead of merely competent.
A personal canon file is the document that says: this is the ground. Build from here.
Canon Is Not a List of Achievements
A list of achievements tells an AI what you have done. A canon file tells it what your work is made of.
Those are different. "Published 145 essays" is an achievement. "Keeps returning to Archive, Ritual, Territory as the three bodies of creator sovereignty" is canon. "Built a smart ring brand" is an achievement. "Sensor, not brain; present data, never judge" is canon.
The first helps the AI sound impressed. The second helps it help.
The Five Parts of a Useful Canon File
Finished Work
Name the artifacts that already exist: books, essays, products, talks, systems, pages, songs, recipes, photographs, datasets, anything that forms the public body of the work.
Living Arguments
Write the arguments you keep making in different forms. These are the spine. They tell the AI what a new draft should continue, not merely mention.
Names You Own
Every creator has private names for things: frameworks, product concepts, internal metaphors, repeated phrases. Put them in the file with definitions. AI cannot preserve what it cannot name.
Anti-Examples
Canon is also refusal. List phrases, tones, structures, and interpretations that look close but are wrong. A good anti-example can save ten rounds of editing.
Current Edges
Canon is not only what is finished. It includes the frontier: the question the work is approaching now, the product that is forming, the argument that has a name but not a body yet.
How to Write the First Version
Open a blank file called MY_CANON.md. Do not make it elegant. Make it useful.
- List ten works that still matter.
- Under each one, write one sentence: "This exists because..."
- Write five phrases that belong to your work.
- Write five phrases that must never appear in your work.
- Write the one argument you would still defend if everything else disappeared.
That is enough for version one. The file can become more precise later. Its first job is to prevent the AI from treating your work as a blank prompt.
A blank prompt invites a stranger. A canon file invites a collaborator.
Signs the File Is Working
You know a canon file is working when the AI starts making better omissions. It stops suggesting ideas that would technically fit but spiritually betray the work. It stops explaining your own premise back to you. It stops using the same five generic content structures that any SEO tool would use.
More importantly, it starts asking better questions. Instead of "What tone do you want?" it asks, "Is this piece part of the Archive argument or the sensor-not-brain argument?" That is the moment the file has become useful.
Where the Canon File Lives
Keep the private version local. If you use it with external AI tools, create a redacted version with no addresses, private names, financial details, medical history, or family information. The public AI does not need those. It needs the work.
Then use it consistently. Paste it before high-stakes drafts. Attach it to project folders. Keep it next to SOUL.md and MY_RED_LINES.md. Update it when a new artifact becomes real.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a personal canon file?
A personal canon file is a structured document that tells an AI what work, ideas, language, references, and arguments already belong to you. It is usually written in markdown and used as part of a larger soul archive.
What should I put in my canon file?
Include finished works, active projects, core arguments, recurring phrases, key references, anti-examples, and names for things you have already defined. Leave out private details that are not needed for the work.
Is a canon file only for writers?
No. Designers, founders, researchers, teachers, artists, and operators all have canon. Your canon is the body of work and decision language that makes your output recognizable.
How long should a canon file be?
Start with 800 to 2,000 words. A useful canon file is long enough to be specific and short enough to paste at the beginning of a work session.
How often should I update it?
Update it whenever something becomes part of the work: a shipped product, a public essay, a new phrase, a closed project, or a rule you no longer want collaborators to violate.
Generate a Canon From Your Existing Work
Soul Alchemy reads your writing and turns it into structured canon, voice, archive, red lines, and next dispatch files you can use with any AI.
Build Your Archive