vault-setup
Vault Setup — Obsidian Configurator
Run from INSIDE the folder you want to become your Obsidian vault.
STEP 1 — One question, free text
Display this message exactly, then wait for their response:
Tell me about yourself in a few sentences so I can build your vault.
Answer these in whatever order feels natural:
- What do you do for work?
- What falls through the cracks most — what do you wish you tracked better?
- Work only, or personal life too?
- Do you have existing files to import? (PDFs, docs, slides)
No need to be formal. A few sentences is enough.
STEP 2 — Infer and preview, don't ask more questions
From their free-text answer, infer:
- Their role (business owner / developer / consultant / creator / student)
- Their primary pain point
- Scope (work only / work + personal / full life OS)
- Whether they have existing files
Then show a vault preview. Do NOT ask clarifying questions. Make smart inferences.
Here's your vault — ready to build when you are.
📁 [current directory name]
├── inbox/ Drop zone — everything new lands here first
├── daily/ Daily brain dumps and quick captures
├── [folder]/ [purpose based on their role]
├── [folder]/ [purpose based on their role]
├── [folder]/ [purpose based on their role]
├── projects/ Active work with status and next actions
└── archive/ Completed work — never deleted, just moved
Slash commands:
/daily — start your day with vault context
/tldr — save any session to the right folder
/[role] — [role-specific one-liner]
Type "build it" to create this, or tell me what to change.
Wait for confirmation before building anything.
STEP 3 — Build after confirmation
Once they say "build it", "yes", "go", "looks good", or similar:
Create folders
mkdir -p inbox daily [role folders] projects archive scripts \
.claude/skills/daily .claude/skills/tldr .claude/skills/[role-command]
Role folder sets:
- Business Owner →
people/ operations/ decisions/ - Developer →
research/ clients/ - Consultant →
clients/ research/ - Creator →
content/ research/ clients/ - Student →
notes/ research/
If personal scope → also personal/
Open in Obsidian
open -a Obsidian "$(pwd)"
Write CLAUDE.md
Write directly to CLAUDE.md in the current directory:
# CLAUDE.md — [inferred role]'s Second Brain
## Who I Am
[2-3 sentences based on what they told you — specific, personal, written in first person as Claude describing its owner]
## My Vault Structure
[folder tree with one-line purpose per folder]
## How I Work
[3-4 bullet points inferred from their answers — capture style, main pain point, scope, what they want from AI]
## Context Rules
When I mention a decision → check [decisions or relevant folder] first
When I mention a person/client/project → look in [relevant folder]
When I ask you to write → read recent daily/ notes to match my voice
When something lands in inbox/ → ask if I want it sorted now
Write skill files
.claude/skills/daily/SKILL.md:
Read today's daily note or create one. Check inbox/ for unprocessed files. Surface top 3 priorities. Ask: "What are we working on today?"
.claude/skills/tldr/SKILL.md:
Summarize this conversation: decisions, things to remember, next actions. Save to the most relevant folder. Update memory.md.
Role-specific skill:
- Business Owner →
.claude/skills/standup/SKILL.md— briefing across projects, decisions, people - Developer →
.claude/skills/project/SKILL.md— load a project's full context - Consultant →
.claude/skills/client/SKILL.md— load a client's full context - Creator →
.claude/skills/content/SKILL.md— read content folder, calibrate voice, develop idea - Student →
.claude/skills/research/SKILL.md— pull all notes on a topic, synthesize
Write memory.md
# Memory
## Session Log
[Updated by Claude Code after each session]
## My Preferences
[Added as Claude learns them]
STEP 4 — Context injection question
After building, ask:
One last thing — how do you want your vault context loaded into Claude Code?
1. Global (recommended) — adds one line to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md so your vault
context loads automatically in every Claude Code session on this machine
2. Manual — I'll give you the line to paste into specific projects when you need it
3. Vault only — works automatically when you run claude from inside this folder
If global: Append to ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md (create if needed):
## My Personal Context
At the start of every session, read [absolute vault path]/CLAUDE.md for context about who I am, my work, and my conventions.
STEP 5 — Final output
Done. Your vault is live in Obsidian.
One manual step left:
Obsidian → Settings → General → Enable Command Line Interface
Your slash commands:
/daily — run this tomorrow morning
/tldr — run this at the end of any session
/[role] — [one liner]
Have files to import?
python scripts/process_docs_to_obsidian.py ~/your-files inbox/
Then: "Sort everything in inbox/ into the right folders"
More from earlyaidopters/second-brain
file-intel
Run the Gemini file processor on any folder — extracts content from PDF, PPTX, XLSX, DOCX, CSV, JSON, and any text format, then generates Obsidian-ready summaries. Use when asked to "summarise this folder", "run file intel", "process these files", or a folder path is provided and summaries are needed.
10daily
Start the day with vault context. Read today's daily note or create one. Surface top priorities. Ask what we're working on.
9tldr
Save a summary of this conversation to the vault. Key decisions, things to remember, next actions. Store in the right folder automatically.
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