Obsidian Manager Skill

Manage the user's Obsidian vault as a persistent second brain. Read existing knowledge, write new content, and search across years of highlights and notes.

Vault Configuration

Path: ~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/Personal_Notes/

Write Mode: Auto-create new files, confirm before updating existing files.

Vault Structure

Personal_Notes/
├── Geoffrey/              # Geoffrey-generated content
│   ├── Mission Control.md # Central dashboard (Dataview queries)
│   ├── Scheduled Tasks.md # Scheduler dashboard
│   ├── Research/          # Research task outputs
│   │   ├── Daily AI Briefings/  # Daily automated research
│   │   ├── {Project}/     # Other research projects
│   │   └── attachments/   # Research images
│   ├── Reports/           # Generated reports and artifacts
│   │   ├── PSD/           # Peninsula School District reports
│   │   │   ├── Discipline/    # Discipline reports and infographics
│   │   │   ├── Enrollment/    # Enrollment reports
│   │   │   ├── Tech Support/  # Tech support dashboards
│   │   │   └── {topic}/       # Other PSD topics
│   │   ├── HRG/           # Hat Rack Group (consulting LLC) reports
│   │   │   └── {topic}/       # HRG topics
│   │   ├── Personal/      # Personal reports
│   │   │   └── {topic}/       # Personal topics
│   │   └── {org}/         # Other organizations as needed
│   ├── Daily-Logs/        # Session summaries (YYYY-MM-DD.md)
│   ├── Learnings/         # Extracted patterns (YYYY-MM-DD-topic.md)
│   └── Decisions/         # Major decisions with rationale (YYYY-MM-DD-topic.md)
├── Meetings/              # Meeting notes (YYYY-MM-DD format)
├── People/                # Contact profiles with metadata
├── Readwise/              # Synced highlights (368 articles, 34 books)
│   ├── Articles/
│   ├── Books/
│   ├── Podcasts/
│   └── Tweets/
├── Snipd/                 # Podcast highlights (58+ episodes)
│   └── Data/              # Podcast folders > episodes
└── Templates/             # Note templates

CRITICAL: See CLAUDE.md "Obsidian Organizational Rules" section for:

• Strict folder structure requirements
• File naming conventions
• Routing rules by content type
• Validation checklist before writing

Always validate folder placement before writing any files to Geoffrey folder.

Scripts

All scripts use Python via uv run with inline dependencies.

Search Scripts

search.py - General Vault Search

uv run scripts/search.py "query" [folder] [--limit N]

Search across the vault for keyword matches. Returns file paths and matching excerpts.

Examples:

# Search entire vault
uv run scripts/search.py "prompt engineering"

# Search specific folder
uv run scripts/search.py "leadership" People

# Limit results
uv run scripts/search.py "AI" Readwise/Articles --limit 10

search-readwise.py - Search Highlights

uv run scripts/search-readwise.py "query" [--author "name"] [--category articles|books|podcasts]

Search Readwise highlights by topic, author, or category.

Examples:

# Search by topic
uv run scripts/search-readwise.py "second brain"

# Search specific author
uv run scripts/search-readwise.py "AI" --author "Andrej Karpathy"

# Search books only
uv run scripts/search-readwise.py "habits" --category books

search-snipd.py - Search Podcast Transcripts

uv run scripts/search-snipd.py "query" [--show "podcast name"]

Search Snipd podcast transcripts and snips.

Examples:

# Search all podcasts
uv run scripts/search-snipd.py "machine learning"

# Search specific show
uv run scripts/search-snipd.py "leadership" --show "Huberman Lab"

Creation Scripts

create-note.py - Create New Note

uv run scripts/create-note.py "title" "content" [--folder Geoffrey/Research] [--tags tag1,tag2] [--related "[[Note]]"]

Create a new note with proper frontmatter and optional backlinks.

Examples:

# Create research note
uv run scripts/create-note.py "AI Model Comparison" "Content here..." --folder Geoffrey/Research --tags research,ai

# Create with backlinks
uv run scripts/create-note.py "Meeting Notes" "Content..." --folder Meetings --related "[[John Smith]],[[Project Alpha]]"

open-in-obsidian.py - Open Note in Obsidian

uv run scripts/open-in-obsidian.py "path/to/note.md"

Opens the specified note in Obsidian using Actions URI.

Content Routing

CRITICAL: When creating content, use these destinations. NEVER dump files directly into Geoffrey/ - always use proper subfolders.

Naming Rules:

• All images/infographics MUST include date in filename
• Format: Descriptive Name YYYY-MM-DD.png or Descriptive Name YYYY-MM-DD to YYYY-MM-DD.png for date ranges
• Example: Peninsula High School Discipline Report 2025-11-17 to 2025-11-20.png

Reports Folder Structure: Pattern: Geoffrey/Reports/{organization}/{topic}/

Organizations:

• PSD - Peninsula School District reports

  • Geoffrey/Reports/PSD/Discipline/
  • Geoffrey/Reports/PSD/Enrollment/
  • Geoffrey/Reports/PSD/Attendance/
  • Geoffrey/Reports/PSD/{topic}/

• HRG - Hat Rack Group (consulting LLC) reports

  • Geoffrey/Reports/HRG/{topic}/

• Personal - Personal reports

  • Geoffrey/Reports/Personal/{topic}/

• {org} - Other organizations as needed

Frontmatter Standard

All Geoffrey-created notes should include:

---
created: 2025-11-23
tags: [geoffrey, research]
source: geoffrey
related:
  - "[[Related Note 1]]"
  - "[[Related Note 2]]"
---

When to Read from Vault

• Before research tasks: Check if user has relevant Readwise highlights or existing notes
• When people mentioned: Look up context in People folder
• For meeting prep: Find past meetings and related notes
• For context: Search Snipd transcripts for podcast discussions on topic

When to Write to Vault

• After research: Save results to Geoffrey/Research/
• Learned patterns: Extract insights to Geoffrey/Learnings/
• Major decisions: Document with rationale in Geoffrey/Decisions/
• Session summaries: Optional daily logs to Geoffrey/Daily-Logs/

Creating Backlinks

Always create backlinks to existing content:

1. Search before creating: Find related notes first
2. Use wiki-links: [[Note Title]] format
3. Add to frontmatter: List in related: field
4. Reference sources: Link to Readwise/Snipd sources when relevant

Example:

Based on insights from [[Readwise/Articles/Building a Second Brain]],
and discussed in [[Snipd/Data/Huberman Lab/episode-123]],
the key pattern is...

Readwise Content Format

Readwise notes have this structure:

---
Author: "Author Name"
Full Title: "Article Title"
Category: #articles
Summary: "AI-generated summary"
---

## Highlights
- Highlight text with optional tags like [[topic]]

Snipd Content Format

Snipd episodes have rich metadata:

---
episode_show: "Podcast Name"
episode_publish_date: 2024-01-15
mentioned_books: ["Book 1", "Book 2"]
snips_count: 5
---

### Snip 1
**Timestamp:** 00:15:30
> Quote text here

**Transcript:** Full context...

Actions URI Integration

Use Actions URI to interact with Obsidian app:

# Open a note
open "obsidian://actions-uri/note/open?vault=Personal_Notes&file=Geoffrey/Research/note.md"

# Create and open
open "obsidian://actions-uri/note/create?vault=Personal_Notes&file=path&content=..."

Best Practices

1. Search before creating: Always check for existing content
2. Link generously: Create connections between notes
3. Use consistent tags: Match existing tag patterns
4. Keep notes atomic: One idea per note in Learnings
5. Include sources: Always cite Readwise/Snipd sources
6. Respect existing structure: Don't reorganize user's folders

Output Format

When completing Obsidian operations:

## Summary
What was done

## Files
- Created: `path/to/new.md`
- Updated: `path/to/existing.md` (if confirmed)

## Related Content Found
- [[Relevant Note 1]] - why it's relevant
- [[Relevant Note 2]] - why it's relevant

## Next Steps
- Recommendations if any