Database Best Practices

General guidance for creating and maintaining knowledge capture databases.

Core Principles

1. Keep It Simple

• •Start with core properties
• •Add more only when needed
• •Don't over-engineer

2. Use Consistent Naming

• •Title property for main identifier
• •Status for lifecycle tracking
• •Tags for flexible categorization
• •Owner for accountability

3. Include Metadata

• •Created/Updated timestamps
• •Owner or maintainer
• •Last reviewed dates
• •Status indicators

4. Enable Discovery

• •Use tags liberally
• •Create helpful views
• •Link related content
• •Use clear titles

5. Plan for Scale

• •Consider filters early
• •Use relations for connections
• •Think about search
• •Organize with categories

Creating a Database

Using Notion:notion-create-database

Example for documentation database:

{
  "parent": {"page_id": "wiki-page-id"},
  "title": [{"text": {"content": "Team Documentation"}}],
  "properties": {
    "Type": {
      "select": {
        "options": [
          {"name": "How-To", "color": "blue"},
          {"name": "Concept", "color": "green"},
          {"name": "Reference", "color": "gray"},
          {"name": "FAQ", "color": "yellow"}
        ]
      }
    },
    "Category": {
      "select": {
        "options": [
          {"name": "Engineering", "color": "red"},
          {"name": "Product", "color": "purple"},
          {"name": "Design", "color": "pink"}
        ]
      }
    },
    "Tags": {"multi_select": {"options": []}},
    "Owner": {"people": {}},
    "Status": {
      "select": {
        "options": [
          {"name": "Draft", "color": "gray"},
          {"name": "Final", "color": "green"},
          {"name": "Deprecated", "color": "red"}
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Fetching Database Schema

Before creating pages, always fetch database to get schema:

Notion:notion-fetch
id: "database-url-or-id"

This returns the exact property names and types to use.

Database Selection Guide

Tips

1. •Start with general documentation database - most flexible
2. •Add specialized databases as needs emerge (FAQ, Decisions)
3. •Use relations to connect related docs
4. •Create views for common use cases
5. •Review properties quarterly - remove unused ones
6. •Document the schema in database description
7. •Train team on property usage and conventions