Hourglass AI Open Sauce

Keeping up with AI is a full-time job. We share ours, free.

AI Open Sauce is Hourglass AI sharing everything we find while doing it for clients: playbooks, Claude skills, build logs and code. Free, no sign-up.

Add to Claude Using Codex, Cursor or ChatGPT?

By Michael Batko and Finlay Ekins · Updated 12 October 2026

Do it yourself

Free

Everything we use, no sign-up

  • Step-by-step playbooks we run with clients
  • The Claude skills that run Hourglass AI
  • Build logs with before and after numbers
Open the library

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New playbooks, skills and build logs, every second Tuesday. Unsubscribe in one click.

Have us build it

We build it with your team

  • For Australian companies of 10 to 100 people
  • 30 minutes with Michael or Finlay, our co-founders
  • You leave knowing where AI pays back first
See if we're a fit

Start with what's slowing you down

Free to copy, no sign-up.

Free Claude skills and promptsThe Claude skills and system prompts that run Hourglass AI. Add them all free with one connector, Hourglass Skills, in Claude, ChatGPT, Codex or Cursor.Start with Consume, how Finlay stays on top of AI
AI implementation playbooksHow we run them for clients todayAI build logs with before and after numbersSee client results so farOpen-source AI guardrailsFor NDIS providers

Rather have it running in your business?

Your inbox eats the first two hours of the dayAI InboxAnswers live in people's headsCompany AI brainYou know AI matters, not where it pays backThe AI audit
Free Hourglass skills

The skills that run Hourglass, in your Claude or Codex in two minutes

Add them once and your AI uses the right one when you ask. Free, no code.

Full open-source stack on GitHub

Where do you use AI?

Also:

Add to Claude

Claude will ask you to confirm, then sign in with your work email.

On a Claude Team or Enterprise plan? Ask your Claude owner to add it for everyone.

  • Funnel teardown

    Maps how a competitor wins customers, from first ad to signed deal, and what to copy.

    Try in Claude

  • Interview me

    Asks you sharp questions, one at a time, until a rough idea becomes a clear brief.

    Try in Claude

  • Sound less like AI

    Make it sound less like AI: emails, posts, docs.

    Try in Claude

  • Quick-fire questions

    Mid-task, asks you short questions until every open decision is settled, so the work goes the way you meant.

    Try in Claude

  • Board review panel

    Puts a hard decision to a panel of specialists, including a sceptic, and returns one recommendation.

    Try in Claude

  • Skill maker

    Turns a task your team repeats every week into a new skill Claude runs the same way every time.

    Try in Claude

  • Consume

    Save any link from your phone in one tap; once a week it sorts the pile into read, notes, share or build. Set it up in Claude Code or Codex.

    Try in Claude

  • Tutor

    Teaches from your own lecture slides and notes, then quizzes you with exam-style questions and marks your answers.

    Try in Claude

  • Eval gates

    Sets up a GitHub repo so a change merges only when automatic checks pass, with no human code review.

    Try in Claude

  • Skills usage

    Shows which skills your team uses most and how that is trending. Totals only, never per person.

    Try in Claude

  • Getting started tour

    A short hands-on tour: what you can use, one real result in minutes, then how to make and share your own skills.

    Try in Claude

Why keeping up with AI is hard for a 10 to 100 person company

The tools outrun the plan

Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini change every few weeks. Between the first and second run of our own AI course, five months apart, the models got markedly better at long documents and output quality. A plan written in January is stale by June.

Keeping up is nobody's job

In a company of 30, AI is everyone's side project and nobody's real one. Owners tell us they will move faster on their own. When we check back two or three months later, most have not started.

Free advice is a sales funnel

Search for a free AI playbook for an Australian small business and you get vendor PDFs behind an email form, written to sell a platform. Nobody shows you the prompts, the files or the numbers.

So we publish what we learn doing it for clients, as we learn it. That is AI Open Sauce.

Trusted where the business is what people know.

Main Sequence
Venture capital
story.
Recruitment
Cadence Property Group
Property
Sense of Self
Wellness
Schweigen
Manufacturing
Integr8
MMA gym
Voyagin Australia
Travel & tourism
TCACC
Sport
Nutrition 4 Performance
Health
NextChapter
Non-profit

What changed for them

Property · Melbourne

Whole office using AI in 7 weeks, up from 5 people

Cadence Property Group logoProperty developer with a $1bn pipeline
Venture capital · Sydney

100% of the team using AI every week

Main Sequence logo$1bn+ deep-tech venture fund
Recruitment · Sydney

5 to 10 hours back every week

Story Recruitment logoCFO recruiter, 30,000+ finance network
Watch the testimonial
See all five results

The Sauce

What we built, what broke and what it means for your business, with the real numbers. Every second Tuesday, free.

New playbooks, skills and build logs, every second Tuesday. Unsubscribe in one click.

Or follow the founders where they write

Michael Batko

Michael Batko

Eight years running Startmate, now building the AI systems he told founders to build.

LinkedInBatko OSX
Finlay Ekins

Finlay Ekins

Co-founder. Writes the Friday note.

XLinkedIn

Read a past issue first

Monthly UpdateSeptember 2026Monthly UpdateAugust 2026Monthly UpdateJuly 2026Monthly UpdateJune 2026

More from us

Open SauceThe one above1 free Claude skill, 2 lessons from client work, 3 things we're into. Every second Tuesday.
Hourglass AI NewsBatko's monthly update on building Hourglass in public: the numbers, the good, the bad and the ugly.Finlay's NewsletterEvery Friday: what Finlay is seeing in AI, and what we're building.
“The early results from the project are incredible. Our admin hours have quartered since working together.”
Toby Chilver, Voyagin Australia

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AI Open Sauce: questions people ask

What is AI Open Sauce?

AI Open Sauce is Hourglass AI sharing everything it finds while making Australian companies AI-native: the playbooks we run with clients, the Claude skills that run our own company, build logs with before and after numbers, and our public code. It is free with no sign-up, written for companies of 10 to 100 people that cannot carry a full-time AI team.

Is AI Open Sauce free?

Yes. Every playbook and build log on AI Open Sauce is free to read, copy and adapt, with no sign-up or email gate. The skills are free too: add Hourglass Skills to your AI app and sign in with your work email. The hgstack repo is MIT-licensed on GitHub; check each repo's own licence before reusing its code.

Who writes AI Open Sauce?

AI Open Sauce is written by Hourglass AI co-founders Michael Batko and Finlay Ekins and the Hourglass team, from AI builds for Australian companies. Every piece carries a named author and the date it was last updated.

Do the AI Open Sauce Claude skills work in ChatGPT or Gemini?

Yes. The skills come through Hourglass Skills, a free connector that works in Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI and most other AI apps that support MCP. Add it once, then ask for a skill by name.

How is AI Open Sauce different from hiring an AI consultant?

AI Open Sauce gives you the method; a consultant, including Hourglass AI, gives you the hours and the accountability. A team of 10 to 100 people can run a playbook itself if one person owns it for a few hours a week. If nobody can, the Hourglass AI audit maps what to build first, audit to roadmap in 14 days.

How often is new AI Open Sauce material published?

AI Open Sauce grows as material is ready rather than on a fixed schedule. Every new playbook, skill or build log goes to Open Sauce email readers first, and the newest three always sit at the top of this page.