Backlinking Skill

Workflow Position

[Point Claude at vault or specific note]
        |
    personal:obs-backlinking     <- YOU ARE HERE
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    [Mode: Single Note | Folder | Full Vault]
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    [Entity Detection] -> People -> Places -> Books -> Projects -> Concepts
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    [Review Mode: Show proposed changes]
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    [User confirms]
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    [Apply links + Create missing entity notes]
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    Output: Linking Report + New Entity Notes

Overview

Automated backlinking skill that scans notes for entity mentions and creates proper [[wiki-links]]. Integrates with your PARA methodology and Auto Note Mover by creating entity notes with appropriate tags.

Key Features:

• •Entity detection for people, places, books, projects, and concepts
• •Review mode with diff output before applying changes
• •Creates missing entity notes with correct PARA tags (#r/person, #r/book, etc.)
• •Respects existing links (won't double-link)
• •Skips code blocks, frontmatter, and already-linked text
• •Builds an entity registry for consistent linking

Primary Value: Directly addresses inconsistent linking by automating wiki-link creation.

When to Use

• •After writing journal entries or meeting notes
• •During periodic vault maintenance (alongside obs-vault-health)
• •When importing notes from another system
• •After creating notes quickly without proper linking
• •To retroactively improve vault connectivity

When to Skip

• •Already well-linked - Note has comprehensive links
• •Code-heavy notes - Technical documentation with few entity mentions
• •Template files - Templates shouldn't have specific entity links
• •Just created entity notes - Run on content notes, not the entities themselves

The Process

Step 0: Determine Scope

Ask the user:

What would you like to backlink?

Single Note - Process one specific note

• •Provide the note path

Folder - Process all notes in a folder

• •Provide the folder path (e.g., 1-Projects/LeanIX/)

Full Vault - Process entire vault

• •Will exclude: Templates/, attachments/, .obsidian/

Wait for answer before proceeding.

Step 1: Gather Entity Registry

Before linking, build a registry of known entities:

Scan for existing entity notes:

• • People notes in 3-Resources/ with #r/person tag
• • Place notes with #r/place tag
• • Book notes with #r/book tag
• • Project index notes in 1-Projects/
• • Area index notes in 2-Areas/

Extract from frontmatter:

• • participants fields in meeting notes
• • author fields in book notes
• • client tags for company entities

Present registry summary:

## Entity Registry

**Known Entities:** X total

| Type | Count | Examples |
|------|-------|----------|
| People | 15 | Alice Smith, Bob Jones |
| Places | 8 | London, New York |
| Books | 12 | Deep Work, Atomic Habits |
| Projects | 5 | LeanIX, BCBS239 |
| Companies | 4 | EY, JPMC, Barclays |

**Aliases Detected:**
- "Alice" → [[Person - Alice Smith]]
- "DW" → [[Book - Deep Work]]

Step 2: Scan Target Notes

For each note in scope:

Skip these sections:

• • YAML frontmatter (between --- markers)
• • Code blocks (between ``` markers)
• • Existing [[wiki-links]]
• • URLs and file paths
• • Headings (typically don't need entity links)

Detect entity mentions:

• • Full names from entity registry
• • Aliases and nicknames
• • Project names (case-insensitive)
• • Book titles (often in quotes or italics)
• • Company/client names

Step 3: Review Mode (Required)

Present proposed changes before applying:

## Proposed Backlinks

### meeting-2024-01-15.md

**Current:**
> Met with Alice and Bob to discuss the LeanIX integration.
> They mentioned reading Deep Work for productivity tips.

**Proposed:**
> Met with [[Person - Alice Smith|Alice]] and [[Person - Bob Jones|Bob]] to discuss the [[LeanIX]] integration.
> They mentioned reading [[Book - Deep Work|Deep Work]] for productivity tips.

**Changes:**
| Entity | Link Created | Confidence |
|--------|--------------|------------|
| Alice | [[Person - Alice Smith\|Alice]] | High (exact match) |
| Bob | [[Person - Bob Jones\|Bob]] | High (exact match) |
| LeanIX | [[LeanIX]] | High (project tag exists) |
| Deep Work | [[Book - Deep Work\|Deep Work]] | Medium (title match) |

---

### journal-2024-01-16.md

**New Entity Notes Needed:**
| Entity | Suggested Note | Tags |
|--------|----------------|------|
| Sarah Chen | Person - Sarah Chen.md | #r/person |
| The Phoenix Project | Book - The Phoenix Project.md | #r/book |

Ask: "Review the proposed changes. Would you like to:

1. •Apply all - Apply all proposed links
2. •Apply selected - Choose which links to apply
3. •Skip note - Skip specific notes
4. •Adjust - Modify entity detection settings"

Step 4: Apply Changes

For approved changes:

Insert wiki-links:

• • Replace entity mentions with [[Note Name|Display Text]]
• • Use display text when note name differs from mention
• • Preserve surrounding punctuation and formatting

Create missing entity notes:

For each new entity, create note with appropriate template:

Person Note:

---
type: resource
tags: [r/person]
title: Person - [Name]
date created: [timestamp]
date modified: [timestamp]
---

# [Name]

## Context
- First mentioned: [[source-note]]
- Relationship: [to be filled]

## Notes

Book Note:

---
type: resource
tags: [r/book]
title: Book - [Title]
author: [to be filled]
date created: [timestamp]
date modified: [timestamp]
---

# [Title]

## Summary

## Key Takeaways

## Notes

Place Note:

---
type: resource
tags: [r/place]
title: Place - [Name]
date created: [timestamp]
date modified: [timestamp]
---

# [Name]

## Context

## Notes

Output Format

Linking Report

# Backlinking Report

**Scope:** [Single Note | Folder | Full Vault]
**Date:** [date]
**Notes Processed:** X
**Links Created:** Y
**Entity Notes Created:** Z

---

## Summary

| Metric | Count |
|--------|-------|
| Notes scanned | 45 |
| Notes modified | 12 |
| Links inserted | 67 |
| New entity notes | 5 |
| Skipped (already linked) | 23 |

---

## Links Created

### By Entity Type
| Type | Links | Top Entities |
|------|-------|--------------|
| People | 34 | Alice (12), Bob (8), Sarah (6) |
| Projects | 18 | LeanIX (10), BCBS239 (8) |
| Books | 8 | Deep Work (5), Atomic Habits (3) |
| Places | 7 | London (4), NYC (3) |

### By Note
| Note | Links Added |
|------|-------------|
| meeting-2024-01-15.md | 8 |
| journal-2024-01-16.md | 5 |
| project-notes.md | 4 |

---

## New Entity Notes Created

| Note | Type | Tags | Source |
|------|------|------|--------|
| Person - Sarah Chen.md | Person | #r/person | meeting-2024-01-15.md |
| Book - The Phoenix Project.md | Book | #r/book | journal-2024-01-16.md |

---

## Recommendations

1. Review new entity notes and add context
2. Run obs-vault-health to check for orphans
3. Consider adding aliases for common nicknames

Entity Detection Settings

Confidence Thresholds

Customization Options

Entity Types to Detect:

• • People (names from registry + capitalized full names)
• • Projects (from 1-Projects/ folder names + #p/ tags)
• • Books (quoted titles, italic titles, "Book - " prefix notes)
• • Places (from registry + known location patterns)
• • Companies (from #client/ tags + registry)
• • Concepts (from #r/ resource notes)

Exclusion Patterns:

• •Common words that look like names (e.g., "Will", "May")
• •Technical terms that might be miscategorized
• •Abbreviations without clear meaning

After Backlinking

1. •Review new entity notes - Add context and details
2. •Run obs-vault-health - Check overall vault connectivity
3. •Update entity registry - Add aliases for common nicknames
4. •Schedule regular runs - Weekly on recent notes

"Backlinking complete! Scope: [Single Note|Folder|Full Vault]"

Results:

• •Notes processed: X
• •Links created: Y
• •Entity notes created: Z

Next steps:

• •Review new entity notes in 3-Resources/
• •Run obs-vault-health for connectivity check

Key Principles

• •Review before apply - Always show proposed changes first
• •High confidence by default - Only auto-link certain matches
• •Preserve context - Use display text to maintain readability
• •PARA-compliant - New entity notes follow your tag conventions
• •Incremental improvement - Better to link accurately than comprehensively
• •Entity registry is source of truth - Build and maintain for consistency