Walkthrough to Obsidian

Convert plain-text walkthroughs, guides, and reference documents into a structured set of interlinked Obsidian markdown pages. Preserves ALL content from the source while organizing it into navigable, cross-referenced pages.

When to Use

• User wants to convert a walkthrough or guide (.txt, .md, or other text) into Obsidian pages
• User wants to split a large document into multiple interlinked Obsidian pages
• User mentions converting a FAQ, reference guide, or game walkthrough for their Obsidian vault

Workflow Overview

The conversion follows 7 phases. Use agent teams for phases 4-7 when the source document is large.

Phase 1: Analyze Source → Phase 2: Plan Breakdown → Phase 3: Create Stub + Index
    → Phase 4: Convert Pages → Phase 5: Audit → Phase 6: Navigation → Phase 7: Cross-links

Phase 1: Analyze Source

1. Read the entire source file
2. Identify the document structure:
   • Title and author/attribution
   • Table of contents or part listings
   • Major sections and subsections
   • Special content: tables, ASCII art, maps, stat blocks
   • Dedication/acknowledgements
3. Count sections and estimate page count

Phase 2: Plan Page Breakdown

1. Use sequential thinking to plan the page structure
2. Decide how to split content into pages:
   • Each major section (Part/Chapter) becomes its own page
   • Group related small sections if they'd be too short alone
   • Keep large sections (e.g., quest guides, item lists) as single pages even if long
3. Define the page order and naming convention
4. Plan the directory structure:

   parent_topic/
   ├── Topic Name.md              (stub/parent page)
   └── topic_walkthrough/
       ├── Topic Walkthrough Index.md  (index/hub page)
       ├── Topic - Section 1.md
       ├── Topic - Section 2.md
       └── ...
   

Phase 3: Create Stub + Index Pages

Parent Stub Page

Create or update the parent topic page:

---
Links: "[[Parent Index]]"
tags:
  - relevant-tag
---
# Topic Name

Brief description of the topic.

# Walkthroughs

- [[Walkthrough Index|Author's Walkthrough (Year)]] - brief description

## See also

- [[Related Topic 1]]
- [[Related Topic 2]]

Index Page

Create the walkthrough index/hub page with:

• YAML frontmatter with Links: back to parent and tags:
• Copyright/attribution notice (blockquote)
• Full introductory text from source (do NOT condense)
• Controls/key reference table (if applicable)
• Numbered list linking to all content pages
• Structure overview (if applicable)
• Acknowledgements (if present in source)

Phase 4: Convert Content Pages

For each content page:

1. Frontmatter: Add YAML with Links: "[[Index Page]]" and tags:
2. Content: Convert ALL source text to Obsidian markdown:
   • Preserve every paragraph, sentence, and detail
   • Do NOT summarize, condense, or omit anything
   • See references/formatting-guide.md for formatting rules
3. Structure: Use proper heading hierarchy (## for sections, ### for subsections)

Parallelization with Agent Teams

For large documents, split the conversion work across multiple agents:

• Assign ~3-5 pages per agent
• Each agent reads the source file sections and creates the Obsidian pages
• Agents work in parallel for efficiency
• Each agent should use the formatting guide for consistency

Critical Rules

• Never omit content. Every sentence from the source must appear in the output.
• Preserve the author's voice. Keep original wording, humor, emphasis, and style.
• Preserve special characters. Accent marks (è, à, ê), emoticons, and unicode.
• Preserve ASCII art. Wrap in code blocks (```) to maintain formatting.
• Preserve original typos. Only fix typos that would cause confusion. Note corrections.
• Keep double punctuation. If the author uses !! or ??, preserve it.
• Keep spaces before punctuation. If the author's style uses word ! or word ?, preserve it.

Phase 5: Audit

Verify every page against the original source:

1. Read each Obsidian page alongside its source section
2. Compare paragraph by paragraph
3. Check for:
   • Missing paragraphs or sentences
   • Altered wording or lost emphasis
   • Missing special characters or accents
   • Lost ASCII art or table formatting
   • Wrong names, numbers, or statistics
   • Missing entries in lists or tables
4. Fix any issues found directly
5. Report findings with severity ratings

Parallelization

Split audit across multiple agents, ~4 pages per agent. Each agent reads the source AND the page, compares, and fixes issues in-place.

Phase 6: Add Navigation

Add a navigation footer to every content page (not the index):

---
**Navigation:** [[Prev Page|← Part N: Title]] | [[Index Page|Index]] | [[Next Page|Part N: Title →]]

Rules:

• First page: no previous link, just Index and Next
• Last page: no next link, just Previous and Index
• Blank line before --- so it renders as horizontal rule
• Use wiki-link aliases for clean display

Phase 7: Add Cross-links

Add contextual wiki-links between related pages. See references/cross-linking-guide.md for the full taxonomy.

High-Value Cross-links

Link Type	Example
NPC/Character → Quest references	[[Quests#Quest Name|"Quest Name"]]
Quest rewards → Item pages	[[Items#Item Name|Item Name]]
Level/area pages ↔ Quest pages	Bidirectional area references
Spell/ability mentions → Spell page	[[Spells#Spell Name|Spell Name]]
Boss/enemy mentions → Bestiary	[[Bestiary|Boss Name]]

Cross-linking Rules

• Link the first meaningful mention only, not every occurrence
• Use aliases to keep visible text natural
• Read target pages first to verify exact heading names for anchors
• Add "See also" cross-references between related reference pages
• Don't overlink — if it feels cluttered, skip it

Quality Checklist

Before declaring the conversion complete:

• Every section from the source has a corresponding page
• All content preserved — nothing omitted or summarized
• YAML frontmatter on every page with Links: and tags:
• Index page links to all content pages
• Parent stub page links to the index
• Navigation footers on all content pages (prev/next/index)
• Cross-links between related pages
• ASCII art preserved in code blocks
• Tables properly formatted with pipes and alignment
• Special characters and accents preserved
• Attribution/copyright notice on index page