Meet Nova: an AI chief of staff that lives on one laptop

Nova is Aman's own AI chief of staff. He asks for something once, by voice, in a chat or from his phone, and then watches it get done, step by step. This is what Nova is made of, how he reaches it, and the one rule it keeps.

Most assistants live in a browser tab. Nova lives on a laptop that is given over to it. That one choice shapes everything else. Nova can use the terminal, the files, the screens and the apps, and there is no cloud server in the middle.

Live now: everything in this article works today. When something is still being built, we say so.

Three parts

Nova is three parts, and each one does one job.

The brain is Hermes Agent, thinking with Anthropic's Claude. It picks a model for each request: Claude Haiku for everyday help, Claude Sonnet for research and decisions, Claude Opus for building and code. The chat shows which model took the request.
The automations run in n8n on the same laptop: the mail cards on Telegram and posting on X.
The builder is Claude Code. We use it to build and look after Nova, and every change is tested before it goes in.

Six ways in

Aman reaches the same Nova in six ways:

He says "Hey Nova" at the laptop.
He types or talks in Nova Desktop, its own window.
He messages it on Telegram.
He messages it on WhatsApp.
He invites it to a Google Meet.
He picks up the tablet that runs only Nova.

Whichever way he picks, the same brain and memory sit behind it. "Send this to me on Telegram" works from any of them.

The same Home page on a tablet held upright: the day's summary with large Brief me and Ask Nova buttons, Nothing is slipping, the next meeting as a touch card and the day's hours below, all made-up demo data. — The tablet that runs only Nova, held upright: the same Home page in its touch layout. Demo mode, made-up data · 29 Oct 2026

Watch it think

Nova Desktop is where you see it work. The orb in the middle changes colour with Nova's state. The Task panel shows the request, the model, a ticking timer, one row per step and a Stop button.

The Task panel on the Chat page of Nova Desktop: a running request with its ticking timer, the model that took it, a Stop button and the start of its task list, all made-up demo data. — The Task panel: the request, a ticking timer, the model and a Stop button. Demo mode, made-up data · 29 Oct 2026

When a source cannot be read, the window says so in words. It never shows an old number as if it were new.

It learns, and says what changed

Nova remembers what matters about Aman from one conversation to the next. It also writes and improves its own skills as it works. Aman's rule is simple: Nova keeps learning by itself and tells him afterwards. Each change is one line on the Chat page, and at 21:00 he gets one short Telegram message with the day's changes. The lines name a skill. They never quote a note.

Nova Desktop's Chat page in presentation mode on a laptop: the conversation on the left; on the right the task panel with the last task's ticked task list, the tools it used, background work and the lines where Nova changed itself; private text shows as dots, all made-up demo data. — The Chat page: beside the conversation, the task list, the tools Nova used and the lines where it changed itself. Demo mode, made-up data · 29 Oct 2026

One rule

Nova does ordinary work without asking. Five kinds of step wait for Aman.

Needs his yes: anything that buys, pays, sends to other people, posts in public or deletes. Asked by voice, Nova says out loud that it needs his authorization.

His yes counts the same on the dashboard and on his phone. His yes first has the details.

What this means for you

An assistant does not have to be a black box. Nova shows each step, names the model it used, and stops for a person at the points that matter. We build it for Aman at PrimeX Meta, and we write down here what works and what we learned on the way.