Create Obsidian Note

Create Obsidian note

Read references/vault-map.md before touching anything. It is this skill's configuration: the vault path and how to access it, the folder table, the filename and date conventions, and which categories are tracked. Everything below is written against a generic kepano vault and resolves its concrete values from that file.

A kepano-style vault's structure is not obvious, and getting it wrong produces broken links, or notes that never surface in the right view.

One question decides the folder: who wrote it

kepano's rule: "If a note is in the root, I know it's something I wrote, or relates directly to me. References is where I write about things that exist outside my world."

So ask: did the user author this idea, or does it exist independently in the world?

• The user's own thoughts, journal, project logs, an insight they had, go to Notes/ (the root).
• A standard concept, term, book, person, or place goes to References/.
• A capture never goes in Categories/. That folder holds hub notes only, one per collection, written when you build a category rather than when you capture.

"N+1 problem" lives in References/ because it exists in the world. The user's coined observation "conservative retreat is not verification" lives in Notes/ because they made it up.

What kind of capture is this

A quick thought, today's work, a dated entry. One note in Notes/, named by the timestamp-plus-title convention in references/vault-map.md. A bare timestamp is unfindable later.

A reusable concept in a tracked collection (a software design concept, an interview-prep item). This is the high-value case. It becomes a References/ note linked into a Category so it accumulates and appears in that Category's Base. Read references/bases-and-categories.md for the frontmatter, the standard-term convention, and how to build a new category.

Several concepts from one session. Write the dated session log in Notes/, then split each reusable concept into its own References/ note linked to a category. Have the session note embed the category Base's newest-first view (![[<category>.base#<that view>]], named in references/vault-map.md) so it reads in one place. Do not paste concept bodies into the session note; the Base embed keeps it to a screen instead of ballooning the note.

Conventions that keep the vault coherent

• Concept titles use the standard English term, with Korean and synonyms in aliases, so both resolve to one note. Verify a term is real industry vocabulary before titling a note with it; references/bases-and-categories.md covers why and what to do with a coinage.
• Link profusely, including to notes that do not exist yet. Unresolved [[links]] are breadcrumbs, not errors. An unresolved link from a typo or a rename is a real defect. The difference is intent.
• Reuse property names across categories (source, confidence, standard, type) so one Base grammar works everywhere. Do not invent a per-category property when an existing one fits.

After writing, verify

Both failure modes here are silent, so check rather than assume.

1. Broken links. Scan the notes you touched for [[links]] whose target is not an existing filename or alias. Pre-existing unresolved links in older notes are fine; ones you just created are bugs.
2. Base YAML. Parse any .base file you wrote before trusting it; a malformed filter shows an empty table with no error. references/bases-and-categories.md lists what to check.

Never damage vault-origin files. For a bulk edit, select by ownership (notes you created this session, matched by their category link), never by a shared property like a tag. The vault's original kepano files carry those tags, and a property-based selector strips them too. This is not hypothetical: an earlier tag-based sweep stripped 0🌲 from a kepano template. If Obsidian is running, a filesystem rename will not update backlinks, so rename in-app or tell the user the links need a look.

What not to capture

Practice problems, someone else's article, and a paid product's prose are not authored notes. A clipped article belongs in Clippings/ (kepano's folder for others' writing). A practice question is something to solve: the note is the user's answer, not the prompt. Summarize and attribute rather than copy.