vault-conventions

Vault Document Conventions

You MUST follow these conventions when creating or modifying any note in this vault.

Pre-Flight Checklist

Before creating any note:

1. Read KNOWLEDGE.md — check the knowledge base structure (user notes vs agent-maintained pages)
2. Decide where the note belongs: user notes stay in their existing areas (e.g. Projects/, Daily/); agent knowledge pages live only under entities/, concepts/, comparisons/, or queries/
3. Pick the writing tool by the operation (see Creating Notes below), following every convention in this skill

Creating Notes

Choose the writing tool by the operation, not by whether Obsidian is running:

Operation	Preferred tool	Why
New page with long or complex content (frontmatter + body, code blocks, quotes)	Write the .md file directly at the exact path	Obsidian indexes new files automatically; no shell escaping can corrupt content
Short new note, or appending a line or two	obsidian create path="dir/note.md" content="..." / obsidian append	Cheap when the content is small; \n escapes newlines
Rename / move an existing note	obsidian rename (Obsidian running)	The CLI rewrites wikilinks across the vault — the real graph-consistency win

obsidian create passes content as one shell-quoted argument. Inside a bash double-quoted string, backticks run as command substitution, $ expands, and nested quotes end the argument — so a page containing a code fence or quoted prose will usually break the command or corrupt the content. If create fails once on content escaping, do not fight the shell: write the file directly with identical frontmatter and naming conventions, then verify with obsidian read (or knowlery health after bulk changes).

When you do use obsidian create, pass path="dir/note.md" — name= resolves like a wikilink and lands in the default new-note location, not necessarily the directory the page belongs in.

Treat any page containing frontmatter plus body, Mermaid or other charts, code fences, tables, or quoted prose as a full page and write the .md file directly.

In headless environments (Obsidian closed, CLI-initialized workspaces), write .md files directly, and run knowlery health after bulk changes.

Hidden Config Paths

Dot-directories (.claude/, .knowlery/, .agents/) are outside Obsidian's vault index. Obsidian CLI commands that depend on the vault index — including read and create — cannot reach them even with path=; use your file tools directly.

Every platform starts from the same sources: the user's KNOWLEDGE.md and the rules in .agents/rules/, plus Knowlery's operating rules. Codex and OpenCode read the vault-root AGENTS.md, where those sources are copied in; Claude Code reads .claude/CLAUDE.md, which @-imports the same files. Both entry files are regenerated on sync: change KNOWLEDGE.md or a rule file, never the managed block itself.

Required Frontmatter

Every note MUST have these fields:

Field	Values
title	Descriptive title
type	meeting, idea, reference, daily, project, person, entity, concept, comparison, query, etc.
date	YYYY-MM-DD — today's date or extracted from content
tags	Array of relevant tags

Additional fields (optional):

Field	Purpose
domain	Knowledge area (e.g. ai-agents, product-strategy)
references	Related notes as wikilinks: [[Note Name]]
status	draft, active, completed, archived
updated	YYYY-MM-DD — last substantive edit (common on agent pages)
contradictions	Cross-links when conflicting claims need review (agent pages)

Wikilink Rules

ALWAYS use wikilinks for:

• People → [[Person Name]]
• Projects → [[Project Name]]
• Domain concepts → [[Concept Name]]
• Related notes → [[Note Name]]

Rules:

• Use [[wikilinks]] for internal vault connections
• Use [text](url) for external URLs only
• Use [[Note Name#Heading]] for specific section links
• Use [[Note Name|Display Text]] for custom display text

File Naming

• Agent knowledge pages (per SCHEMA.md): lowercase with hyphens, no spaces (response-time-metrics.md); one topic per file under entities/, concepts/, comparisons/, or queries/
• User notes keep the user's own naming — never rename them to match agent conventions
• No special characters, no leading/trailing spaces
• Daily notes: YYYY-MM-DD format where applicable

Post-Creation Verification

After creating or modifying a note, verify:

1. All required frontmatter fields are present and correct
2. People and project mentions use [[wikilinks]]
3. Domain concepts are linked consistently