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A free guide by Mariah Brunner ↗ INSTAGRAM ↗ TIKTOK

Build The Viral
Family Assistant
In Claude

There’s a viral app called Ollie that plans your dinners, builds your grocery list and keeps the family calendar straight. The idea is great, and you can build your own version inside Claude. Here’s exactly how.

Ollie is an AI family assistant you text. It sends a daily briefing, pulls out school emails, plans dinners and builds your grocery list.

I went through what it does, and Claude can handle almost all of it with a Project, two connectors and one scheduled task. Most of this works on the free plan. Only the daily rundown in Step 4 needs a paid plan.

Step 1: Make A Family HQ Project

01

Let Claude interview you

In Claude, click Projects, then New project, and name it "Family HQ." Free accounts get up to five Projects. Start a chat inside it and paste the prompt below. Claude asks about your kids, allergies, routines and bills one question at a time.

When it hands you the Family Profile, open the Project, click Set project instructions, paste it in and save. Now every chat in Family HQ already knows your family.

The Family HQ Interview
You are my family's personal assistant, and this is our Family HQ. Before you help with anything, you need to learn how our household runs. Interview me ONE question at a time. Wait for my answer before asking the next one. Keep it friendly and quick, and ask a short follow-up only when an answer is unclear. Cover these topics, in this order: 1. Who's in the family: names, ages, and each person's role (parent, kid, grandparent, nanny). 2. Allergies, dietary needs, and foods we avoid. 3. Our weekly routine: school, work, activities, practices, carpools, and standing commitments, by day. 4. Recurring bills: what each one is, roughly how much, the due day of the month, and whether it's on autopay. 5. Meals we love, meals we're sick of, how many dinners a week to plan, and how much time we have to cook on weeknights. 6. Our usual grocery store and weekly grocery budget. 7. Anything else that helps you run the house: pets, babysitters, regular appointments, birthdays, school calendar dates. When you have everything, STOP asking questions. Give me a "Family Profile" with a clear header for each topic above, written as short bullets so I can paste it into my project instructions and update it later. At the bottom, list anything I skipped so I can fill it in. Rules: don't guess or fill gaps with made-up details. If I say "skip," move on.
Step 2: Connect Calendar And Gmail

02

Turn on two connectors

In any chat, click the + in the message box, hover over Connectors, and switch on Google Calendar and Gmail. Sign in with Google once. Now Claude can check your week, catch conflicts and find bills in your inbox. (Anthropic’s setup steps)

The Weekly Family Check-In
Use my connected Google Calendar and Gmail, plus my Family Profile in this project, to give me a family check-in for this week. Steps: 1. Read my calendar from today through next Sunday. 2. Search my inbox from the last 14 days for school notices, invitations, appointment reminders, bills and payment due dates. 3. Compare the two against our routine in the Family Profile. Give me back, in this order: - Conflicts: any two things at the same time, or a kid who needs to be in two places at once. Suggest a fix for each. - RSVPs and forms: anything waiting on a reply or a signature, with the deadline. - Money: bills or payments due in the next 10 days, with amount and due date if the email shows them. - Today: the three things I most need to handle today. Keep it skimmable with short bullets. Say "nothing found" for an empty section instead of filling it. Don't send, accept or delete anything. If you draft a reply, show it to me first.

Good To Know

Claude can send, reply to and forward email, and it asks for your approval before each one by default. It sees attachment names but can’t open what’s inside, so a PDF bill won’t be read. It only uses the Google account you connected, and it only checks when you ask. The always-on part is Step 4.

Step 3: Photo Your Fridge, Get Dinner

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Fridge photo to grocery cart

Snap a photo of your fridge and pantry and drop it in the chat. Claude plans meals around what you already have, so you waste less and buy less.

Then let Instacart build the cart. Ask Claude to order groceries and it prompts you to connect your Instacart account. The cart syncs to Instacart, where you review it and check out. It’s available in the U.S. right now. (Instacart’s announcement)

Fridge Photo To Full Cart
Here's a photo of my fridge and pantry. Use it with my Family Profile in this project to plan dinner. Steps: 1. List what you can see in the photo. If something is unclear, say so instead of guessing. 2. Plan dinners for the next 5 nights. Respect every allergy and food we avoid, keep weeknight meals within the cooking time in my profile, and reuse ingredients across nights so nothing goes to waste. Use up anything that looks close to expiring first. 3. For each night, give me: the meal name, total time, and a 3 to 5 step method. 4. Make a grocery list of ONLY what I'm missing, with quantities, grouped by store section. 5. Ask me to confirm the list. Once I say yes, use Instacart to build the cart at my usual store so I can review it and check out in Instacart. Don't add extra items to the cart that aren't on the confirmed list.
Step 4: A Rundown Every Morning

04

Schedule your daily family brief

This is the piece that makes it feel like an assistant. Set up a scheduled task and a rundown is waiting for you every morning.

  1. The easy way. Paste the prompt below into a chat. Claude asks a couple of questions, shows you the name, schedule and instructions, and you click Schedule.
  2. The manual way. In Cowork, click Scheduled in the left sidebar, then New task, and set it to run daily.

Scheduled tasks need a paid plan (Pro and up). They run on Anthropic’s servers, so your rundown still shows up when your laptop is closed. If your screen looks different, Anthropic is merging chat and Cowork into one Claude right now. (How scheduled tasks work)

Your Daily Family Brief
Every morning at 7am, send me my family rundown for the day. Use my connected Google Calendar and Gmail and my Family Profile in this project. Include, in this order: 1. Today's schedule: every event with the time, and who needs to be where (flag any pickups or drop-offs). 2. Dinner tonight: what's planned, and anything I need to take out of the freezer or buy. 3. Money: any bills or payments due in the next 3 days. 4. Replies: emails from the last 24 hours that need an answer from me, one line each on what they want. 5. Heads up: anything tomorrow I should prep for tonight. Keep it short and skimmable, like a text from a really organized assistant. Skip any section with nothing in it. Never send, accept or delete anything on my behalf.

The Real Win

Keep your Family Profile, favorite meals and bill dates in the project instructions and update them when life changes. That’s the memory that makes it feel like it knows your family. Before you buy any viral app, try building it yourself first.