The Miss AI
Obsidian
Guide

What Is
Obsidian?

Obsidian is a note-taking app with a superpower.

Everything you write is stored locally on your computer in a folder called your Vault, just plain markdown files. No cloud lock-in. No subscription required. No one else owns your data. You can open every file in any text editor on earth and read them directly.

That sounds simple. Here is the part that changes things.

When you connect Obsidian to an AI agent like Claude Code, it becomes your second brain. The AI reads your notes, builds connections between them, writes new ones from your raw sources, and helps you think at a level that was never possible before.

Why You
Should Use It

Most people are losing their best thinking.

Ideas go into chat windows and disappear. Meeting notes live in ten different apps. Conversations with AI never compound, you start from scratch every single session. The insight you had three months ago is gone. The founder you met last year is a vague memory. The strategy you wrote in a Google Doc is buried somewhere you will never find it.

Obsidian fixes this. Here is why it is the right tool for anyone building something:

• Your data is yours forever. No subscription cancellation means losing everything.
• It works offline. Your brain does not need WiFi.
• AI agents can read and write to your vault, turning it into a living knowledge base.
• The Graph View shows you a visual map of how all your ideas connect.
• It scales from 10 notes to 10,000 notes without breaking.
• Free for personal use. No ongoing cost to get started.

Notion is a great tool. But your data lives in Notion's cloud. If Notion changes pricing or closes, you lose access. Every note in Obsidian is a plain text file sitting on your hard drive. You own it completely. You can back it up, move it, or open it in any app. That independence is the foundation everything else is built on.

The Core Idea:
Karpathy's
LLM Wiki

In April 2026, Andrej Karpathy, co-founder of OpenAI and the person who coined vibe coding, went massively viral for sharing how he now uses LLMs to build personal knowledge wikis instead of just generating code.

Raw documents go into a folder. An AI reads them, extracts key insights, and writes structured interconnected notes. The knowledge compounds over time instead of being rediscovered from scratch on every question.

When you use ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI tool with your documents, it works like RAG — Retrieval Augmented Generation. You upload files, the AI finds relevant chunks at query time, it generates an answer. Every time you ask a question it starts from zero. Nothing accumulates. Nothing compounds.

Instead of retrieving from raw documents at query time, the AI incrementally builds and maintains a persistent wiki. When you add a new source, it reads it, extracts key information, and integrates it into the existing structure — updating pages, creating links, noting contradictions, strengthening the knowledge base.

Your Vault
Structure

This structure was built by combining two ideas from two people worth following.

Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy on X) published his LLM Wiki concept in April 2026, showing how AI agents can incrementally build and maintain a personal knowledge base from raw source material.

Remy (@aiwithremy on Instagram) shared his Obsidian business setup, showing how to structure a multi-brand founder vault with the _context pattern, Areas, and Projects. His system is built for real business operations, not just research.

Copy and paste this into Claude to generate a structure tailored to your business:

I want to set up an Obsidian vault as my AI second brain.
Please build me a complete vault structure based on how
I actually work. Here is my situation:

My businesses / brands: [list them]
My income streams: [e.g. clients, products, coaching, content]
My content platforms: [e.g. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X]
My team size: [solo / small team / etc]
Tools I currently use: [Notion, Google Docs, Fireflies, etc]

Please create:
1. A top-level folder structure (6 folders max)
2. Subfolders inside Areas/ for each of my brands/businesses
3. A _context folder inside each Area with a list of docs
   I should create for that brand
4. A sample Brand Voice.md template I can fill in
5. A daily log template suited to how I work

Base the structure on Karpathy's LLM Wiki pattern
(raw/, wiki/, schema) combined with a business-first
folder approach where each brand has its own _context
folder as the single source of truth.

Areas/
  Content Brand/    # Your personal brand and content
    _context/       # Brand voice, ICP, positioning, platforms
    Content/        # Scripts, captions, articles, reels
    Newsletter/     # Weekly issues, structure guide
    Analytics/      # Platform stats, what is working
  Product Business/ # Your SaaS, tool, or marketplace
    _context/       # Positioning, pricing, ICP
    Products/       # Product 1, Product 2, Product 3
  Clients/
    01-Pipeline/    # Leads with initial conversations
    02-Active/      # Signed clients in delivery
    03-Complete/    # Finished engagements
  Coaching/
    _context/       # Offer, pricing, target student
    Students/
  Partnerships/
    _context/       # Partnership context and overview
    Contacts/       # One note per key contact

Step-by-Step
Setup

• A Mac, Windows PC, or Linux machine
• Chrome browser for the Web Clipper extension
• A Claude Pro subscription ($20/month) to connect Claude Code
• About 30 to 45 minutes for the initial setup

• 01
  Download and install Obsidian

  Go to obsidian.md and download the free app for your operating system. Open it. When it asks, select Create new vault. Name your vault something meaningful. Save it in your Documents folder.
• 02
  Create your folder structure

  Right-click in the left sidebar and select New Folder. Create your six top-level folders: Areas, Projects, Daily Logs, Meeting Notes, Notes, _System. Then build subfolders inside Areas for each brand or business. Inside Notes, create a subfolder called raw.
• 03
  Turn on Daily Notes

  Go to Settings → Core Plugins → turn on Daily Notes. Set date format to YYYY.MM.DD, new file location to Daily Logs, and template file location to _System/Templates/Daily Log Template.
• 04
  Install Templater

  Go to Settings → Community Plugins → turn off Safe Mode → Browse → search Templater → Install and Enable. This makes your templates smart. Dates auto-fill, notes auto-create from templates.
• 05
  Create your daily log template

  Create a note inside _System/Templates/ called Daily Log Template. Paste the template below into it.
• 06
  Install Obsidian Web Clipper

  Go to obsidian.md/clipper and install the Chrome extension. In its settings, set the default vault to your vault name and the default folder to Notes/raw. One click saves any webpage straight into your vault.
• 07
  Create your first _context doc

  Inside your main brand's _context folder, create a file called Brand Voice.md. Add your tone, your audience per platform, your content pillars, and what you never say. Every AI agent you run will point to this file as its briefing document.

# Daily Log — <% tp.date.now("YYYY.MM.DD") %>

## Brain dump
<!-- Just talk. What is on your mind today? -->

## What I am working on today
-

## Wins from yesterday
-

## Stuck on / blockers
-

## Follow ups needed
-

## Content ideas
-

## Random thoughts
<!-- Voice note style. No filter. -->

Plugins

Obsidian has hundreds of community plugins. Start with these and add more only when you have a specific reason.

What Data
to Import

Your vault should not start empty. You have years of valuable thinking scattered across different platforms. Here is how to get it all in one place.

• Fireflies: fireflies.ai → export transcripts as text. Goes into Meeting Notes/.
• Google Meet: included in Google Takeout.

Links and the
Graph View

Links are what turns Obsidian from a notes app into a second brain.

When you connect notes together, the Graph View shows you a visual map of how your ideas, projects, people, and businesses relate to each other. The more links you create, the more your vault looks like a living system rather than a folder of documents.

Type double square brackets around any word or phrase:

[[Your Product]] connects to [[Your Brand]] which feeds into [[Your Audience]]

Every bracketed term becomes a node on your graph. If that note does not exist yet, Obsidian creates a placeholder. When two notes both reference the same term, a line appears between them.

At the bottom of your Brand Voice doc add a links section like this:

[[Your Product]] [[Your Brand]] [[Podcast Name]] [[Newsletter]]
[[Coaching]] [[Platform 1]] [[Platform 2]] [[Client A]] [[Client B]]

Do the same for every _context doc and every project file. The more links you add, the richer your graph becomes.

Press Cmd+G on Mac or Ctrl+G on Windows at any time. You will see every note as a dot and every link as a line. Notes with more connections appear larger and sit closer to the centre.

Connecting
Claude Code

This is where everything comes together and you create the beautiful brain.

Claude Code is an AI agent that reads and writes files on your computer. When you point it at your Obsidian vault, it becomes the engine that processes your raw data, builds your wiki, creates links between notes, and maintains your second brain automatically.

• Node.js installed on your computer
• A Claude Pro subscription ($20/month) or higher
• A terminal — Terminal on Mac, Command Prompt or WSL2 on Windows

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Navigate to your vault folder:

cd '/path/to/your/vault'

Launch Claude Code:

claude

Save this as a note in _System/Claude Code Prompts.md and paste it into Claude Code whenever you have new files to process:

There are new files in Notes/raw/ - please process all
unprocessed files, extract key insights, people, projects,
and ideas, and create properly linked markdown notes in
the correct folders:

- People and contacts  -> Areas/Partnerships/Contacts/
- Brand content        -> Areas/[Your Brand]/Content/
- Business insights    -> Notes/
- Client info          -> Areas/Clients/
- Podcast guests       -> Areas/Podcasts/

Use [[double bracket links]] to connect everything to
related notes already in the vault.
Update index.md and log.md if they exist.

Once your vault has notes in it, run this to make your graph light up with connections:

Please read every note in my vault and add [[double bracket
links]] wherever related concepts, people, projects, or
brands are mentioned. Specifically:

- Link every mention of a project to its project file
- Link every mention of a person to their contact note
- Link every mention of a brand or product to its _context doc
- Link every mention of a platform to a platform note
- Link every mention of a client to their client folder

After adding links, update the graph by ensuring index.md
lists every note with a one-line summary.

The goal: every note should have at least 2 outbound links.
Start with the _context docs, then Projects, then Daily Logs.

Your Daily
Workflow

Once your vault is set up, using it should feel effortless. Here is the rhythm that makes it work.