Obsidian Orientation

Quick reference for how to use Obsidian day-to-day in this vault.

Creating Notes

Use QuickAdd macros -- not the "New note" button in the file explorer.

Cmd+P -> type quick -> select a macro:

You want to...	Macro	What it does
Write an essay, idea, or public-facing piece	New Growing	Farm frontmatter, starts at planted
Jot a quick private thought	New Note	Fleeting note, no farm taxonomy
Respond to a book or article	New Book Note	field: thinking, stage: preserved
Track a project	New Project	Status/priority/area metadata
Create a navigation page	New Stake	Minimal frontmatter, structural
Log a recipe	New Recipe	field: living
Create a fiction character	New Character	Goes in Bantushido/Characters/
Create a fiction location	New Location	Goes in Bantushido/Locations/
Create a fiction scene	New Scene	Goes in Bantushido/Scene/

Each macro prompts for a title, creates the file with frontmatter pre-filled, and opens it. Write below the second ---.

Formatting (Markdown)

## Heading (use ## for sections, ### for subsections)

**bold**  *italic*  ~~strikethrough~~

- bullet point
1. numbered item
- [ ] todo checkbox

> blockquote

[[Name of another note]]       -- links to it
display text     -- links but shows different text
![[image.png]]                 -- embeds an image from Attachments/
![alt text](https://url)       -- external image (less reliable for publishing)

`inline code`

The big one: typing [[ opens autocomplete. Start typing any note name and it finds matches. This is how you connect ideas.

For images: save to Attachments/ first, then embed with ![[filename]]. Local embeds are more reliable for Digital Garden publishing than external URLs.

To keep the source URL for an external image, add it below the embed:

![[my-image.gif]]
Source: https://original-url.com/image.gif

Shortcuts

Start with these four:

Action	Shortcut
Open any note by name	`Cmd+O`
Command palette (everything)	`Cmd+P`
Search all notes	`Cmd+Shift+F`
Toggle edit/reading view	`Cmd+E`

Other useful ones:

Action	Shortcut
Bold	`Cmd+B`
Italic	`Cmd+I`
Toggle checkbox	`Cmd+Enter`
Open link under cursor	`Cmd+click`
Back (navigate history)	`Cmd+Alt+Left`

Frontmatter (Properties)

The stuff between the --- lines at the top of every note. Most of it is automated.

Linter handles on every save:

planted and last-tended dates update from filesystem
Key order is enforced
Tags get de-duped and formatted

You fill in manually:

field -- thinking, building, living, or work
crop -- open vocabulary, leave blank until you decide
stage -- starts at planted. Promote to rooted, bearing when it matures
dg-publish -- flip to true when ready for seka.works
tags -- add in YAML array format: [tag1, tag2]

Finding Things

Three tools, escalating power:

Quick switcher (Cmd+O) -- "I know the name." Type part of it, jump there
Search (Cmd+Shift+F) -- "I know what it says." Full-text search across everything
Bases (click a .base file in sidebar) -- "Show me a category." Filtered, sortable tables

Your Bases:

All Crops -- everything with a field value
Thinking / Building / Living / Work -- per-field views
Reading -- book notes
Bantushido -- fiction project

Publishing to seka.works

Set dg-publish: true in the note's properties
Cmd+P -> "Digital Garden: Publish Single Note" (or Publish Multiple Notes)
Wait 30-60s for Vercel to rebuild
If the note should appear on a field landing page, also re-publish that Structure page

Note on images: Digital Garden pushes local attachments to the GitHub repo. Gifs animate correctly. Large files may slow the publish.

The Farm Taxonomy

Every content note has two required properties:

field -- which area of the farm:

thinking: essays, observations, learning in public
building: systems, tools, infrastructure, agent architecture
living: personal threads, cooking, fitness, East Africa
work: case studies, research frameworks, design systems

stage -- growth state:

planted: new, just an idea or seed
rooted: developed, has substance
bearing: mature, producing value
fallow: resting, not actively tended
compost: dead, decomposing into other ideas
stake: structural/navigation (not content)
preserved: shelf-stable reference (book notes, archived logs)

Stages are manual -- you decide when to promote.

crop -- open vocabulary, assigned intuitively. No rules yet. Examples so far: licorice.