diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index fa20c52..d13a5f6 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -64,7 +64,15 @@ Note the optional setup of `embark`, which allows us to visit files just by invo
 
 # CLI usage
 
-To get started, just create an empty directory to serve as content origin. It doesn't matter where or what it's called, since the shell scripts only assume a sequentially numbered collection of files.
+1. To get started, create an empty directory to serve as content origin. It doesn't matter where or what it's called, since the shell scripts only assume a sequentially numbered collection of files.
+
+2. Decide on a zero-width for your series and seed the first file:
+
+  ```
+  touch 001.md
+  ```
+
+  The rest of the commands will now work with this width.
 
 ## next
 
diff --git a/shell/last.sh b/shell/last.sh
index 1991538..7e8d330 100755
--- a/shell/last.sh
+++ b/shell/last.sh
@@ -6,4 +6,6 @@
 # in plain terms:
 #   [leading numbers with consistent width].[optional string descriptor and . separator][md|txt]
 
+# TODO: signal no file found, so that next knows to create one.
+# Grep exits 1, but tail exits 0.
 ls | egrep '^[[:digit:]].*\.md|txt' | tail -n 1