Vault (Obsidian Notes)

Name: Vault
Rating: 92
Author: channingwalton

Location: ~/Documents/Notes/

Principles

•Obsidian vault for documents - Detailed notes, task logs, project context
•Unix tools for fast search - ripgrep (rg), fd, or mdfind for finding content efficiently
•WikiLinks for connections - Build traversable knowledge graph
•ALWAYS: New tasks should be in an open state

Templates

•templates/knowledge-note.md - For knowledge notes
•templates/task.md - For new tasks

Bash Commands

bash

# List in-progress tasks
rg --type md -l "^status:\s*in-progress" ~/Documents/Notes/Projects/*/Tasks

# Find project directory (handles YYYY[-MM] prefix)
fd -t d -d 1 -i "<project>" ~/Documents/Notes/Projects

# List project task files
fd -e md . ~/Documents/Notes/Projects/*<project>*/Tasks

# Find files by name
fd -e md -i "<name>" ~/Documents/Notes

# Recently modified (last 7 days)
fd -e md --changed-within 7d ~/Documents/Notes

# Find with Spotlight index
mdfind -interpret -onlyin ~/Documents/Notes "<concept>"

Timestamps

Always use real timestamps, never placeholders:

bash

# For task filename: YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS
date +"%Y-%m-%d %H%M%S"

# For log entry header: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM
date +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M"

# For frontmatter (ISO-8601)
date -Iseconds

Task File Path

~/Documents/Notes/Projects/<YYYY[-MM] Project>/Tasks/<YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS> <Title>.md

Linking Strategy

Link if it improves the note, not just because it matches a term.

What to search for

Search for	Example (if writing about "Unison abilities")
Direct terms	"abilities", "Unison abilities"
Parent concepts	"effect handlers", "functional programming"
Sibling techniques	"monads", "algebraic effects"
Tools/tech used	"UCM", "Jit"

Linking workflow

•Semantic discovery — mdfind -interpret for related concepts
•Backlinks — rg "\[\[<concept>" to find what links to your topics
•Tags overlap — rg "^ - <tag>$" for notes sharing tags
•Add discovered notes as WikiLinks using breadcrumb pattern: [[Parent]] | [[Related]]

Capture Heuristics

Worth capturing when:

Marker	Trigger
📋	Principle applies across multiple contexts
🤔	Caused debugging time or surprised me
⚙️	Method that could save time later
📎	Link to documentation or source
☝️	Non-obvious choice with reasoning worth preserving

Where to capture:

Destination	When
Existing note	Discovery extends/refines an existing topic (search firs )
New note	Substantial, standalone, referenceable by other notes
Task log only	One-off detail that won't generalise

Note Locations

Folder	Purpose	Examples
`Development/`	Conceptual, non-project, topics, paradigms, architectural patterns	"Functional Programming", "Test Driven Development", "Unison Web Application Patterns"
`HowTo/`	Procedural guides, specific techniques, step-by-step instructions, unrelated to projects	"Unison Testing with Effect Handlers", "TDD with Functional Programming"
`Tools/`	Software tools and their usage	"Claude", "Git", "HTMX", "Obsidian"
`Projects/<project>/`	Project level knowledge in an appropriate note in the project folder
`Projects/<project>/Tasks/`	Task logs only — never knowledge notes
`Projects/<project>/Glossary`	Glossary entries

What NOT to include

•DO NOT include changed files