Built with Amplifier

Cortex

Personal AI assistant platform — manages attention,
automates tasks, acts on your behalf across devices.

✓ Active
bkrabach · January–February 2026
The Problem

Your attention is under siege

🔔
Everything Screams Equally

Every app competes for your attention with the same urgency. A reaction emoji gets the same treatment as a message from your manager.

🧩
Fragmented Across Devices

Phone, desktop, tablet — each runs its own silo. No shared intelligence. No cross-device awareness of what matters to you.

🤖
AI That Doesn't Know You

Today's assistants are stateless. They don't learn your preferences, don't understand your relationships, and can't act on your behalf.

The Vision

A personal AI
that truly knows you

One brain across all your devices. Domain experts for every part of your life. Always learning, always protecting.

Architecture

Hub and spoke — central intelligence with domain experts

📱 Phone
💻 Desktop
⌚ Watch
→
🧠 Cortex Core
Always-on AI hub
→
🛡️ Attention
💰 Finance
🏃 Health
All devices report to one brain. Domain experts provide specialized knowledge. The Attention Firewall is the first working expert, filtering notifications in real time on Windows.
The Stack

Three repositories, one system

cortex
Orchestration layer and personal AI platform. Manages attention, automates tasks, coordinates domain experts.
16 commits · Created Jan 13, 2026
amplifier-app-server
Always-on Amplifier server runtime. Hosts persistent AI sessions with HTTP/WebSocket API, extensible via bundles.
90 commits · Created Jan 9, 2026
amplifier-bundle-attention-firewall
AI-powered Windows notification controller. Filters notifications, surfaces what matters, batches the rest.
46 commits · Updated Feb 19, 2026
All repositories under bkrabach/ · Sole contributor: bkrabach
First Domain Expert

Attention Firewall — working now

Notification
arrives
→
Evaluate
rules + LLM
→
VIP?
always surface
→
Classify
surface / batch / suppress
🛡️
Configurable Rules

VIP senders, priority keywords, noise patterns, per-app defaults. All defined in a single YAML configuration file.

📋
Amplifier Integration

Runs as a first-class Amplifier bundle. Query the notification database conversationally: “What did I miss in the last 2 hours?”

Development Approach
“I did NO technical directing down in the weeds. I explained outcomes, asked what was possible, told it to try things, and gave my feedback.”
— Brian Krabach, Lead Developer
Impact

What Cortex delivers

🛡️
Attention Protection

Notifications are filtered before they reach you. Only what matters gets through — the rest is batched or silenced entirely.

🌐
Always-On Runtime

A persistent server that hosts AI sessions continuously. No manual startup, no lost context. HTTP and WebSocket APIs for any client.

📦
Extensible by Design

Built on Amplifier's bundle system. New domain experts plug in without changing the core. The attention firewall was the first; more can follow.

From vision to working system in ~6 weeks. A single developer built the orchestration layer, always-on server runtime, and a fully operational notification filtering system — all on the Amplifier platform.
Development

Built in ~6 weeks

3
Repositories
152
Total commits
1
Contributor
~6
Weeks (Jan 9 – Feb 19)
cortex: 16 commits (Jan 13 – Feb 4) · amplifier-app-server: 90 commits (Jan 9 – Feb 12) · attention-firewall: 46 commits (Jan 9 – Feb 19)
Sole contributor: bkrabach (100% of commits across all 3 repos)
Sources

Research Methodology

Data as of: February 20, 2026

Feature status: Active (attention-firewall updated Feb 19, 2026)

Research performed:

Gaps: No local clone of the cortex repo was available for code-level analysis. Commit counts are from GitHub API metadata, not individual git log enumeration. Line counts and code quality metrics were not gathered. No usage metrics or notification processing stats are available for this deck (those belong to the separate Attention Firewall deck where DB access exists).

Primary contributor: bkrabach (100% of commits in all 3 repositories)

Your AI, your way.

3 repos. 152 commits. One developer.
A personal AI platform — built with Amplifier.

Cortex

github.com/bkrabach/cortex

App Server

github.com/bkrabach/amplifier-app-server

Attention Firewall

github.com/bkrabach/amplifier-bundle-attention-firewall

Built with Amplifier
More Amplifier Stories