🧬 The Digital Twin

🚧 Work in progress

Scenario 1 is still being built and tested. Steps, downloads, and screenshots may change before the event.

You'll build this in Cowork. No code, and no experience needed.

The problem

Copilot already knows a lot about how you work. Its memory and Work IQ read across your mail, calendar, and Teams, so most drafts start close to right.

What it can't do is show you the picture it's formed of you, let you fix where it's wrong, or carry it into another tool. The calls you actually make - which priority wins when two collide, what you never send without checking, whose sign-off you wait for - it just re-guesses, session after session. So you re-brief it from scratch each time, and rewrite most of what it hands back.

Objectives

Build a digital twin: a SKILL.md plus a references/ folder that hold how you work. Cowork writes the first version from your own mail, calendar, and Teams; you spend the session making it accurate and teaching it what it can't infer.

File	Holds
persona.md	Who you are and how you decide - who you serve, what wins when priorities collide, what you check before committing, and what's live right now
voice.md	How you write, plus a few of your own messages kept verbatim, so what comes out sounds like you rather than like Copilot

By the end, your twin should:

• Sound like you - draft in your voice and take the positions you'd take, with a rule you can point to behind each one.
• Match how you actually work - you've corrected the first read it wrote of you, fixing what it got wrong.
• Know what it couldn't infer - you've added the context your history can't show: the people you deal with, what you've committed to, what's already been decided.

Setup

Three quick steps to a working twin. Open Cowork - if it doesn't load, grab a coach.

1 · Download your twin

🧬Your twinThe skill that reads your work and builds itself. Saves as SKILL.md - leave it in your Downloads folder.Download SKILL.md →

2 · Install it

1. In Cowork, open Customize in the left menu.
2. Open the Skills tab.
3. Select the arrow next to Add, then Upload skill.
4. Choose the SKILL.md file from your Downloads folder.

How a skill works

A skill is a plain-text Markdown file, SKILL.md, containing instructions Cowork loads and follows.

The file opens with frontmatter - a name and a description. Cowork chooses which skill to load by matching your request against the description, so the description defines when the skill applies. The body below the frontmatter is the instructions.

Skills are saved in your OneDrive under Documents/Cowork/skills/<name>/. A skill can include a references/ folder of additional .md files; the skill reads them when its instructions call for them. Your twin writes its own references there.

SKILL.md follows the Agent Skills open standard, so the same files run in other tools that support it, such as GitHub Copilot in VS Code.

3 · Build it

Start a new task and type in the following prompt:

Set up my twin.

It tells you what it's about to read and waits for a yes, then reads your sent mail, Teams messages, and about a month of calendar. Its access is read-only - it can only see what you already have access to, and it has no permission to send or share anything.

It comes back with a draft of both files and writes itself into your OneDrive:

Documents/Cowork/skills/my-twin/
  SKILL.md          ← the instructions. This is the file you uploaded
  references/
    persona.md      ← who you are and how you decide
    voice.md        ← how you write
    setup.md        ← how far it got, so it can pick up if you get pulled away

Everything in references/ is read automatically before the twin answers.

Test it with a real question:

Using my twin, what should I do about [the thing you've been putting off]?

It should take the position you'd take. Start your request with the twin's name - "using my twin" or "ask my twin" - or Cowork may not call the skill.

📎

Give it a name you'll actually use. Tell Cowork to rename it - "rename my twin to Clippy" - then call it by that from now on: "Clippy, what should I do about...?"

The hack

Your twin works, but it's generic - built from what your work proves, which isn't the same as what you'd say about yourself. The rest of the session is two moves: make it accurate, then teach it what it can't see.

🔒

Keep it yours. You each build your own twin on your real mail and rules - so when you compare with your table, share proof, not contents: one thing that changed, one thing it got wrong. Nobody needs to see your inbox.

Correct your twin

Ask to see what it built:

Show me my persona.md.

Each section is filled from your real work and tagged with how directly the twin knows it:

[observed]	It found this in your mail, chats or calendar, and can quote it
[inferred]	A reasonable read of what it found, but you never said it outright
[needs you]	Your work didn't cover this, so it wrote a starting point for you to react to

Start with [inferred] and [needs you]. They're furthest from the evidence - the twin can watch a month of your work and still not know what you'd refuse outright. Then thicken the [observed] lines: accurate, but thin.

Only add lines that change what the twin does - a name, a date, a threshold, a hard no. "Balance competing priorities" is too vague; add a line underneath that acts:

"When an internal deadline and a customer's collide, protect the customer's and renegotiate the internal one."

Test each change: save a request and its answer, edit the file, then run the same request again. If nothing moves, the line was too vague or your test didn't need it. Stuck for what to add? Ask it: "What don't you know about how I work that would change your answers?"

Teach your twin what it can't see

Your twin now knows you - your judgment and your voice. What it doesn't know is the context around you: the people you work with, what's already been decided, what the work is for, and what you're actually working on right now. You add that as references.

Decide as a table which reference to add, then build it in parallel - each of you adds the same one to your own twin, so you can compare what worked. The list below is a starting menu; pick what's useful or invent your own. Start with one, add more if you've got time.

Reference	What your twin gains	Start with
👥 People	Who it's talking to - what each person needs, who wants the answer first, who you soften bad news for	"Add a reference for who I work with most, what each needs from me, and how I talk to them. Read it whenever a named person is involved."
📅 Commitments	What you've already promised, so a new ask lands against a real calendar, not an empty one	"Add a reference for what I've already committed to and when. Read it before telling me to take anything else on."
✅ Decisions	What's already settled, so it stops reopening things the team closed weeks ago	"Add a reference for decisions we've made and why. Read it before proposing a change of approach."
🎯 Goals	What the work is for, so it weighs what matters, not just what's next	"Add a reference for what I'm trying to achieve this quarter. Read it when I ask what to prioritize."
🗂️ Your working set	The real material you're on now - briefs, drafts, past write-ups - so it grounds answers in your actual work, not just your rules	"Add a reference capturing the projects I'm working on right now and a few of my own past write-ups. Read it when I ask about current work."
✨ Your own	Anything the list doesn't cover - a reference your work actually needs, or a rethink of what the twin does. Rebuild the skill from scratch if you want	"I want my twin to [what]. Work out what it needs - a new reference or a change to the skill itself - and when to use it."

Build each reference by iterating with Cowork: paste a prompt from the table, see what it drafts, then refine. You'll know it worked when the twin pulls the reference in on its own: re-run an earlier request and see if the answer changed.

Use everything in the room - Copilot chat, the Guides, your SME, coaches, and the rest of your table.

What a skill looks like

The SKILL.md you uploaded. Frontmatter sets name and description; the body is the instructions:

---
name: my-twin
description: Use when the user says "using my twin", "triage what landed",
  or asks for a draft that sounds like them.
---

# My Twin

## Before every answer

Read everything in `references/` - persona.md first, then voice.md.

## Triage

When asked what landed, check mail and Teams, say how many items you
checked, then sort every one into Handled, Needs me, Blocked or Noise.

What a reference looks like

A file in references/; the twin can read as many as you like.

Here's a filled-in people.md, with made-up names:

# People

Read this whenever a named person is involved, or when I'm deciding
who to tell first.

## Dana - my manager
Skims everything. Lead with the date and the ask, under five lines,
no preamble. Wants to hear about a slip the day I know, not the week
it lands. Never surprise her in a meeting with something I could have
sent on Tuesday.

## Sam - peer, finance
Wants the number first and the reasoning second. Hates hedging - "roughly"
and "should be" both get a follow-up. If I don't have the number yet,
say so and give a date.

## Priya - partner marketing
Blocked more often than she says. If she's asking, she's usually been
waiting a few days already, so answer before the polished work.
Two-line yes with a date beats a paragraph.

## The Northwind team - external
Careful and brief. Never commit to a date, a number, or anything about
roadmap without checking with Dana first. No internal context, no
shorthand, no names they wouldn't recognize.

## Anyone I'm delivering bad news to
Say the thing in the first line. Then what I'm doing about it, then
what I need. Never bury it under context.

Two things make it work: it says when to read it at the top, and every line says what to do rather than describing the person. "Sam is detail-oriented" changes nothing. "Number first, no hedging" changes the next draft.

After today

This is a starting point, not the finish line. In one short session, alongside a table learning the same thing, you got a twin working and practiced the real skill: building and iterating with Cowork.

What you made today won't change the world, and it doesn't need to. The point is the muscle - say what you want, see what Cowork gives back, refine - and a twin that's yours to keep building on long after today.

---

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