A calm, prioritized list of what to do — today, this week, this month, and not yet.
A free, MIT-licensed Claude specialist that sorts the administrative load in the week after a death. Not therapy. Not legal advice. A written list, in minutes, in the language of admin.
One four-column list. Every time.
You don't read paragraphs. You read a list. The compass sorts every decision into one of four columns by urgency. The last column — defer — is the one that lifts the load.
TODAY
Next 24 hours
- Disposition method confirmation
- Cremation authorization (state waiting periods)
- Social Security notification
- Anything irreversible the family is being asked to sign
THIS WEEK
Days 2–7
- Memorial page setup on the online service
- Obituary publication
- Document gathering
- Service planning (in-person and livestream)
- Employer notification
MONTH 1
Days 8–30
- Order 10–12 certified death certificates
- Account-closure sequencing
- Will filing (where required by state)
- Acknowledgments and thank-you handling
- Probate attorney consultation booking
DON'T-DO-YET
Defer 30–90 days
- Beneficiary waivers and settlement offers
- Disposal of personal effects
- Large irrevocable real-estate or vehicle decisions
- Insurance "express release" forms
- Contested-will questions
Five follow-on jobs after the first list
After the four-column triage, the same chat handles the work that follows.
| Job | What it does | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Letter interpretation | Read a bank, insurer, employer, court, or funeral home letter. Surface who sent it, what they want, real deadline vs. implied urgency, and which column it belongs in. | Whenever the family receives correspondence they don't fully understand. |
| Pre-signature review | Before the family signs anything (funeral contract, beneficiary form, release), flag what's irreversible and whether the document belongs in DON'T-DO-YET. | At every signing moment in the first month. |
| Status snapshot | Produce a DONE / IN PROGRESS / WAITING ON / DON'T-DO-YET / NEXT 7 DAYS summary at any point in the chat. | For family coordination, attorney handoff, or just to see where you are. |
| Letter drafting | Draft a short email or letter to a specific institution — employer, bank, insurer, funeral home, vital records office — with bracketed variables for personalization. | When the family needs to send notification letters and can't face writing them. |
| Memorial-page guidance | Walk through the specific online funeral service in use (Forever Missed, Ever Loved, Tribute Archive, GatheringUs, Legacy.com) — what's free vs. paid, what privacy controls exist, what to publish and what to defer. | During week 1 setup of the memorial page. |
What the compass actually returns
A real intake from examples.md. The exact output shape, copy unchanged.
I'm sorry.
Intake confirmed: California, using Ever Loved, mother passed May 8. I have what I need.
TODAY (next 24 hours)
- Confirm disposition method with the funeral home. If you haven't signed anything yet, ask for the General Price List in writing before signing. (Reference:
reference/us/02-ftc-funeral-rule.md) - Authorize cremation if that's the choice. California requires a 48-hour waiting period from time of death before cremation. The funeral home will give you the form. (Reference:
reference/us/01-direct-cremation-vs-traditional.md) - Notify Social Security: call 1-800-772-1213. The funeral director usually handles this — confirm with them.
THIS WEEK (days 2–7)
- Set up the Ever Loved memorial page — free tier covers tribute page, photos, tributes from visitors. Choose: public, unlisted, or password-protected. (Reference:
reference/us/03-memorial-obituary-publishing.md) - Publish the obituary — SF Chronicle, LA Times, or San Diego Union-Tribune (~$200–$800), Legacy.com cross-publishes from most newspapers, Ever Loved hosts a free version with no length limit.
- Coordinate the service — if streaming, see
reference/us/04-virtual-memorial-service.md. Most families use Zoom or the funeral home's streaming service.
MONTH 1 (days 8–30)
- Order 10–12 certified death certificates. California: order through CDPH Vital Records or VitalChek (~$24/certificate plus service fee). Faster: through the county recorder's office where she died.
- Begin account-closure sequencing. Order: banks → brokerages → credit cards → utilities → subscriptions.
DON'T-DO-YET (defer 30–90 days)
- Don't open probate yourself. California has a small-estate option ($184,500 limit, Probate Code §13100) — ask an attorney whether you qualify.
- Don't dispose of personal effects. Photograph, box, label, store. Two months from now you'll be glad.
- Don't pay non-essential bills from her accounts after death without estate authority.
The page also flags what NOT to sign today.
A second sample from examples.md — a family in Texas being asked to sign a $6,800 package on day 2. The compass intercepts.
I'm sorry. Hold off. Don't sign today.
This is a pre-signature review, not the four-column triage — you flagged a specific imminent decision.
Your federal rights at this exact moment
- Demand the General Price List. They must give it to you in writing, on request, and let you keep it — before showing you the Statement of Goods. If they haven't, that's a Funeral Rule violation.
- You can choose individual items, not the package. Items in a $6,800 package that are not legally required in Texas: embalming (Texas does NOT require it for burial or cremation), a casket for cremation (a rigid container is used), an "outer burial container" / vault (federal law doesn't require it).
- You can buy the casket or urn elsewhere — online, Costco, third-party retailer. The funeral home cannot refuse it and cannot charge a handling fee.
What to do TODAY
- Ask for the GPL in writing. Take a photo of it.
- Tell them you'll sign tomorrow. Most contracts can wait 24 hours. Only cremation/burial authorization is genuinely time-sensitive — that's a separate form.
- Paste the GPL back in this chat when you have it. I'll do a line-by-line review against the Funeral Rule and against what's standard in Texas.
What the compass would look like in use.
The compass is pre-launch. The three blocks below are composites we drafted during the design phase to show what families would receive on day 2, week 1, and month 1. The people and details are fictional. Real family-side feedback will replace these blocks after cold-test with a live online funeral service.
Day 2 — pricing intercept
"We were about to sign a $7,200 funeral package on day 2. The compass told us to ask for the General Price List first and listed which items weren't legally required. We ended up at $3,400 for the same outcome — and it caught two waivers we would have signed without reading."
Composite drafted for illustration. Not a real customer. Voice belongs to "Maria L., daughter, California" — entirely fictional.
Cross-state coordination
"I'm in Florida; my mother lived and died in Arizona. I didn't know where to even start — which state's vital records, which state's probate, whether I had to fly out. The compass sorted what had to happen from where, gave me a status sheet I could email my sister, and was very clear about what could wait until month 2."
Composite drafted for illustration. Not a real customer. Voice belongs to "David K., son, Florida" — entirely fictional.
The "don't do yet" column
"The thing that helped most wasn't the to-do list. It was the column that told me what NOT to do this month. Beneficiary forms, the insurance company's settlement offer, deciding about my husband's car — all of it got marked 'wait, talk to the probate attorney in month 2.' That was the part I needed permission to defer."
Composite drafted for illustration. Not a real customer. Voice belongs to "Sarah M., spouse, New York" — entirely fictional.
If you are an online funeral service interested in distributing this compass to your families — or a family who has used it and would share a real account — please open an issue on GitHub.
About 5 minutes, one time.
If you can use Claude in a web browser, you can set this up. No install, no API key, no monthly cost beyond your Claude subscription.
Clone or download the repository
From GitHub: git clone the repo, or click the green Code button and download the ZIP. You only need the markdown files.
Create a new Claude Project
Go to claude.ai/projects, click New Project, give it a name like "Funeral Family Compass."
Upload the files as Project Knowledge
Upload identity.md, rules.md, examples.md, reference/README.md, and all six files under reference/us/. You can drag and drop.
Open a new chat in the project
The compass is now loaded. Any chat in this project uses the specialist's identity, rules, examples, and reference.
Paste the first-run prompt
I lost my [relationship] on [date]. We are in [US state]. We are using [online funeral service]. Where do I start?
The compass replies with a four-column triage. Follow-up prompts in the same chat can ask for letter interpretation, pre-signature review, status snapshots, letter drafting, or memorial-page guidance.
Common questions
Why isn't this grief counseling?
Because the work of administrative triage and the work of grief are different. A compass that tries to do both will do neither well. This compass sorts the load — what to sign, what to defer, what to call, what to refuse — in the voice of admin. For grief, the compass points to real resources: 988 (US suicide and crisis lifeline), Crisis Text Line (text HOME to 741741), GriefShare, the Hospice Foundation of America, and your physician's referral to a grief-specialist therapist.
Why US-only at first ship?
Funeral law, vital-records processes, online-service availability, and consumer-rights protections differ materially by country. A compass populated for the US that pretends to answer for the UK, India, or Mexico would produce wrong answers for grieving families. The architecture is country-extensible — see reference/README.md in the repo — but population happens one country at a time, driven by a real user need with a local validation partner. Building all-of-everywhere preemptively creates stale content; building responsively keeps the bar honest.
Can our online funeral service distribute this to our families?
Yes. MIT-licensed, no attribution required (though appreciated). You can brand-overlay the Project name and prompts to match your service's voice. The compass refers families back to your service for service-specific questions — it doesn't recommend competing platforms.
Why no specific funeral home prices?
Because prices vary 2–3x between funeral homes in the same metro area for identical services, and quoting a specific price would mislead families. The compass points families to their federal right under the FTC Funeral Rule: every funeral home must provide a General Price List in writing, on request, and prices by phone. Comparison shopping is a Funeral Rule right.
What does it refuse?
- Legal advice (refers to probate attorney in the deceased's state)
- Medical advice including cause-of-death documentation (refers to physician or medical examiner)
- Grief counseling (refers to crisis lines and grief-specialist therapists)
- Specific funeral home pricing quotes (refers to the FTC Funeral Rule and the funeral home's General Price List)
- Non-US jurisdiction questions (refers to the country's consumer-protection / vital-records / consulate)
Each refusal lands with an exact pointer to who does that work, not a wall.
What does the compass cost?
The compass itself is free, MIT-licensed. The cost is your Claude subscription (free tier exists; paid tier varies). There is no third-party SaaS, no API key, no recurring fee added by this compass.
I'm a death-tech founder / online funeral service operator / customer-success team member. Is this for me?
This specific compass is shaped for the bereaved family as the end-user. The same architecture (folder of markdown files loaded as Claude Project Knowledge) can produce a different specialist for the operator side — a coach-the-family specialist, a roadmap-and-decision-support specialist for founders, a customer-success scripts specialist. Those are different builds. Open a GitHub issue if you want to talk shape.
What's the architecture for adding another country?
The reference/ folder is country-keyed. Adding a country means copying reference/_template-country/ to reference/[iso-code]/, populating the six standard files with country-specific content, and having a local funeral director or funeral-consumer NGO review before merging. The rules.md empty-country handler is already in place — once reference/uk/ exists, UK families will get UK-grounded output instead of a refusal-with-pointer.