⌁ Layer 1 + Layer 3 — model families and the chat / coding surfaces they ship with

The four AI assistants in one place.

Claude, OpenAI Codex, Google Gemini, and xAI's Grok. Each is a model family (the brain) plus the chat app, API, and coding agent the maker ships around it. Picking one is mostly about which company you trust most and which products you already pay for — the underlying model quality is close enough that it rarely decides the question.

Each guide below is a complete mirror of its standalone subdomain (which now 301s here). For the orchestration harness that ties them together, see Hermes. For setting them up on a specific device, see the OS guides.

Claude

/assistants/claude/

A complete, plain-language guide to Claude and the wider Anthropic toolkit — products, design workflow, integrations, and machine builds. The most-used model on the WholeTech network.

Maker: AnthropicBest at: careful reasoning, long docs, coding

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Codex

/assistants/codex/

An end-to-end guide to OpenAI Codex — the CLI, the IDE extension, the cloud, GitHub @codex, AGENTS.md, approval modes, prompting, and the workflows that actually pay off.

Maker: OpenAIBest at: raw coding throughput

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Gemini

/assistants/gemini/

The practical guide to Google's AI stack — the Gemini app, AI Studio, Gemini API, Workspace, Android, Search, model choices, workflows, and how Gemini fits beside Claude, Codex, and Hermes.

Maker: GoogleBest at: long context, Google integration

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Grok

/assistants/grok/

The end-to-end guide to xAI's Grok and the platform formerly known as Twitter — the models (Grok 4, 4 Heavy, mini, Aurora, Imagine), every surface, every plan, the timeline algorithm, and how to actually win on X.

Maker: xAIBest at: real-time, X-native context

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Side by side

Assistant	Maker	Headline model (May 2026)	Strongest single use	Coding agent
Claude	Anthropic	Opus 4.7	Careful reasoning, long documents, code	Claude Code (CLI + IDE)
Codex	OpenAI	GPT-5.5	Raw coding throughput	Codex CLI + IDE
Gemini	Google	Gemini 2.5 Pro	Long context, Google-app integration	Gemini CLI
Grok	xAI	Grok 4 / 4 Heavy	Real-time, X-native context	(no dedicated agent — chat + API)

How to pick: most people who use the network use two — usually Claude for "the careful one" and one of Codex or Gemini as the second engine. Grok is the situational pick when you specifically need real-time X / news context. Hermes (one level up) lets you point one workflow at whichever of the four fits the moment.