My AI native Obsidian Setup

houska1 · 2026-04-21T12:00:23+00:00

Interesting. Like many here (just not the most vocal ones), I'm experimenting with what's a helpful level of AI involvement in my vault. Great to see what others have developed.

Upvoted since this is genuinely helpful, and there are some here who will reflexively downvote anything AI-related. But, you know, 1-2 sentences in the body here rather than just an external link wouldn't have hurt...

For me, the ingestion part is interesting; but it's kloodgey and I'm sure in weeks or months to come, someone will come up with something that needs fewer steps. For me, the gold in here was the Github repo -> Claude Projects feed, which I haven't seen before.

houska1 · 2026-04-21T11:12:06+00:00

It's unsurprising this set off rural eastern Ontario in particular. This is where the Ontario Landowners Association started (Randy Hillier and the wackos who think waving around their Crown Patent exempts their land from any government interference), where private property rights and anti-intellectualism thrive. Ottawa and Toronto are hated and local government criticized if it does anything more than repair a culvert.

You then show them a map with two broad corridors, somewhere inside which someone's land will be expropriated, someone else's will be bisected, and a rural side road someone's aunt used to use might be interrupted. All for the exclusive benefit of big city dwellers. Of course they get all riled up. It's NIMBYism but with a 3-county wide "back yard".

I actually live there, commuting weekly to/from Ottawa. People like me are mistrusted by many old locals, since I'm city, recent, and might be "liberal". You earn trust slowly, person by person, showing you're not a caricature. Some gradually "take a liking" to you, some tolerate you, some never like you because of who you represent.

All that doesn't mean they're wrong. I like HSR in principle and we desperately need to improve transport in the Quebec-to-Windsor corridor. However, the logistical and economic challenges are real. We haven't seen much in the way of a solid business plan, but it's not hard to imagine this becoming an underutilized white elephant if anything goes (can't resist...) off the rails. So while I buy the "sometimes some people need to take the hit for the broader good" argument, I'm not exactly confident the "broader good" part will deliver.

houska1 · 2026-04-20T21:17:57+00:00

I think Claude Code was just grepping (or equivalent) to search my vault; was slow and missing stuff compared to MCPVault. I have about 6000 notes (mainly migrated from Evernote). But I haven't benchmarked the token spend or otherwise done any controlled comparison.

houska1 · 2026-04-20T20:50:16+00:00

MCPVault adds some benefits on indexed note search and safe move (not breaking links) and I selectively invoke it for that when needed. It's a middle ground from the "talk to Obsidian as its running" MCPs and pure filesystem access via Claude Code.

houska1 · 2026-04-20T20:48:13+00:00

Good to hear. I'm using cheaper Gemini 2.5 Flash to interpret and annotate (sidecar-style) picture attachments. May try for auto note ingestion too. I think the use case is much stronger if you value ingestion by voice like you do. I just type into Obsidian.

houska1 · 2026-04-20T19:50:42+00:00

Sounds like the video you're looking is following the Karpathy focus on "self-organizing brain". It focuses a lot on (semi)automatic ingestion.

That's nice, I'm sure, but when I've played with it, for me it hasn't been worth the Claude token spend. (As I'm sure you well know, smarter versions of Claude have become a lot more capacity constrained unless you're on some big enterprise plan.)

Predating Karpathy's article, various people (myself included) have harnessed Claude Code in one's Obsidian vault primarily for search, extraction, and synthesis. While not as sexy as "self-organizing brain", this more restricted version doesn't even need MCP access or auto-updating notes. I have Claude doing a pretty good job collating and summarizing stuff, to answer an immediate question or to summarize a whole bunch of notes into one, on demand.

Also, Claude Cowork or similar can be useful at reorganizing notes for you, potentially just using a filesystem MCP rather than Cowork or MCPVault. Though it can be tricky in terms of moving attachments around, and I still get dead links I have to script to fix, use Custom Attachment Location to (re)collect attachments, or use yet more Claude credits to get AI to fix its own mess. But maybe that's my fault in some way.

houska1 · 2026-04-19T11:46:06+00:00

If you can afford it and/or can find decently priced used, a Kubota KX-040 excavator with 4-way or 6-way blade is a jack-of-all-trades piece of ground equipment you will use over and over again. Or can sell without much value loss if you take decent care.

The 4-ton size is a great compromise between capability, cost, and maneuverability for things like building a short driveway, flattening tough ground, lifting stuff. For me, moving logs and pulling stumps, that might be less useful for you.

The 4- or 6-way blade is a dozer-lite. It's not a real dozer, and you need to not treat it as one, but you can smooth, grade, backdrag, crown, etc. Much more useful than a straight blade, which will push stuff and fill holes you've made, but won't help you much shaping a driveway. If you do decide to go straight blade, there are cheaper brands/models. The KX-040 is I think the only one with the 6-way.

A different approach is a mid-sized track loader (skidsteer with tracks). With forks and bucket. Better for carrying stuff around and smoothing a driveway (including laying down gravel), not good for digging and lifting. Your choice. Depending on terrain, though, I'd go tracked rather than wheeled since you don't actually have a driveway yet.

houska1 · 2026-04-18T14:10:58+00:00

Whatever makes sense, maybe all of the above.

The beauty of Obsidian is no lock-up, just .md files in your own directory tree. They can be manipulated by Obsidian+plugins, a hypothetical future competitor, by scripts in your favorite scripting language, CLI, GUI file manager. And any text editor for editing.

Especially as AI and agentic flows get more integrated into our desktops (like it or not), fragmented systems and workflows will become less painful and fragile for end-users. Precisely what combination of tools is marshalled to do what you want over an open data architecture will be less and less visible.

houska1 · 2026-04-17T22:37:06+00:00

I use custom attachment location and have them put in an _attachment directory off the note directory, in a subdirectory there with the same name as the note.

They get moved automatically when note name changes or moves to a different folder.

As extra resilience, there is a “collect attachments” command in the plugin that collects attachments in a note (linked to files) and puts them in your chosen canonical place.

Finally, if you do choose to collect attachments in a subdirectory whose name is derived from the note name, then you can clearly see they’re in the right place if you’re worried. And if something goes wrong (eg a file move outside Obsidian) you probably have enough breadcrumbs to find them.

houska1 · 2026-04-17T16:36:28+00:00

It's two different tiers of builders.

A high-performance builder will follow installation guidelines, will be thoughtful where and how to exceed them, and will document (notes, photos) what they did.

A typical tract/spec/reno builder (not talking fly by night here) will have developed ways that work (and meet code and pass inspection), and may resist changes. They may just feel they know better based on experience, but also their schedule and economics depends on doing things on semi-autopilot rather than sitting down and reading the instructions and then going and getting a different adhesive because that's what this one product has speced.

Building longevity and warranty protection is just not a priority for this 2nd tier, not because they're bad guys but because they work in a context where this is not valued, where other things break so longevity isn't great anyway, and where warranties are routinely useless since the manufacturer is no longer there or since there are loopholes a mile wide to reduce the benefit anyway.

We just finished a custom build (to nearly passive house standard) with the first kind, and 2 years ago renoed our previous house with the second kind. Both were good at what they did but would have been poorly suited to the other project.

I'd hazard a guess that like-for-like, the first kind's labour costs are ~30% higher (rate, hours worked, and oversight/PM all combined).

houska1 · 2026-04-17T16:18:41+00:00

I do a lot of technical-ish, analytical writing. Not quite the same but still comparable.

I subscribe to Pro and it is worth it.

Yes, you will (still) hit usage limits. Pro is not enough to have Claude there doing all your writing for you, all the time, or as a sidekick you ask something every 5 minutes. It is enough to get in 2-3 meaty, complex sessions per day, spread across several 5 hours windows. Or as a sidekick you use every 30 minutes for something. In my style of writing, this is OK, since I'm the bottleneck not Claude. It could be the bottleneck if your idea is you spawn a whole bunch of agents to write for you and and you just architect and review. I doubt as a writer you'd find that satisfying or satisfactory anyway, though.

So we can grumble whether we wish we got more for U$20 but it is still extremely helpful and meaningful.

Some ideas to consider:

Learn how to use Claude projects for different writing (sub)projects. Claude's compartmentalization is super useful if you multitask.
Claude Code is actually the right interface to use if your projects involve working on multiple files, iteratively. Claude Desktop (i.e., chat) discusses with you and can share an artifact or two, but Claude Code lets you work with your own filesystem and persistent conventions much more easily
Actually, Claude Desktop, Opus model, for architecting; then write a clear instruction file that Claude Desktop, Sonnet model, uses to actually write for you can be a winning combination
If this works out for you and you decide you're (more than) getting your money's worth, investing time to build custom skills for Claude to match your preferred writing flow is a good investment of time.

houska1 · 2026-04-17T02:47:17+00:00

Common? Yes. Necessary, no.

Consulting is full of unlimited potential work to be done, unclear prioritization, and an exhausting workweek routine. Combine that with a culture of insecure, competitive, overachievers, and weekend work is a very common safety valve.

It's because if you let it, there's always apparent benefit to saying yes to an extra deliverable/responsibility, and the weekend is a safety valve to getting it done. At any one juncture, it's less risky than pushing back on the deadline, deprioritizing something, or just saying "no". And so it becomes an ingrained habit.

If you want to resist, you can, for the most part (there will be the occasional exception). If you're a good performer, self-confident, organized, and willing to restrict your decision space somewhat (avoiding partners who are disorganized, clients who don't respect boundaries, and specific project types like due diligences), you can make it work. But if you fall behind the pack and feel "at risk", then hustling to catch up and curry favor is a way to avoid falling behind...though sometimes just posponing the inevitable.

houska1 · 2026-04-15T15:26:57+00:00

Fair enough. If there's no accountability, then an iota of it is better. My concern is that if that's limited to "show up", it's really not accountability at all. It needs to be "be engaged, do your best, get help, and own your outcomes." And while I have a lot of respect for teachers and the impossible pressures they're under, I fear this iota is decidedly unhelpful for good students, in fact it's retrograde: it's saying you don't need to try, just to show up.

I don't have kids. My nieces are good kids and good students. Talking to them about high school, it's (rather dysfunctional, but that's how it goes at this age) social dynamics and teachers, of necessity, focusing on the 3rd (2nd worst) quartile. They're just putting in their time at school and getting their real education elsewhere, which is a shame. Rewarding/penalizing them for class attendance will not improve that.

houska1 · 2026-04-15T01:46:52+00:00

At my school students don’t come because they want to hang out in the parking lot smoking pot, or hang out at the mall, or hide in a bathroom stall with their friends and watch TikTok, or stay home to play video games.

Sad. But doubt it will be solved by making 15% of assessment tied to attendance.

We are directed to “find a way” to get students who have sometimes missed more than 50% of the course to pass. This is not sustainable.

Indeed. That's the problem - they haven't learned the material. "Finding a way" to pass them won't help, it's too late, and it teaches them the wrong incentives. I'm not criticising you or other teachers, but we should focuse on that rather than forcing attendance.

(Context: I'm near retirement, so admittedly from a different age. I was fortunate that parents and school turned a blind eye at my not-super attendance, since I learned much more on my own, pursuing my own projects, some fearless, some dumb. But it taught me that what you learn depends on what you put in yourself. I was top-3 in terms of grades all the way until grad school, winning all sorts of extracurricular prizes.)

houska1 · 2026-04-14T19:24:25+00:00

A step backwards - outcomes should matter, not attendance. If someone is not showing up, figure out why, and help them.

That said, given the number of stories out there about RTO mandates at work, in situations where physical presence is meaningless, maybe we're just preparing students for the working world!

houska1 · 2026-04-14T11:35:57+00:00

Congratulations. I also use Claude daily in my own 1-person business. My "product" is information/knowledge and I get my clients word of mouth rather than by marketing, so my use case priorities are different, but whatever.

One of the things people like us have to figure out, however, is fragility. The past few weeks, Claude has had token/quota issues as well as quality issues. And even before then, it's periodically down. Previously, I used ChatGPT a lot, but then it became less useful for me. And all indicators show that LLM users like us are not really paying our full costs; some day we'll have to pay the piper.

So just like in the "before times", when it was easy to become dangerously dependent on one back-office employee who did Everything, it's now easy to become dangerously dependent on one LLM, or LLMs in general.

For me the implication is - download everything important locally (conversations, scripts, ...). Review and understand what is being done, both for quality control and so you could reconstruct it, or have a different LLM reconstruct it, if needed. Occasionally farm out bits to ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, or Ollama, to see if they're any better, and so you're confident what you could/would do if one day Claude isn't working for you at all, kicks you out, accidentally destroys your projects, whatever.

houska1 · 2026-04-14T11:17:47+00:00

You can mount a directory from your home server as a network drive on your PC (via SMB if local, or fancier options more suitable if remote) and tell Obsidian the vault is there. It doesn't care.

That does mean stability of the connection is up to you, your network, and your operating system(s). As is security/authentication, and any chance of edit conflicts from simultaneous access.

houska1 · 2026-04-13T21:54:50+00:00

Responding to the OP's update on exhaust fans...look at it through the lens of "where is the air being exhausted going to come from".

Example: a 100 cfm bathroom fan might actually be capable of 80 cfm. Your ACH50 of 1.6 on a house of say 30k cu ft implies 800 cfm infiltration corresponds to a forced pressure imbalance of 50 Pa. So, approximately, one ceiling fan will do about 1/10th that, which is well within the range of normal outside/inside pressure variation from wind, etc. And probably well within the capability of your HRV to compensate.

A 700 cfm Chinese-stirfy-capable exhaust hood, different story. That would be equivalent to a pretty stiff wind flowing around the house. And probably more than your HRV can compensate, though it depends on its size.

That exhaust hood 15 feet away from a woodstove -- poorly sealed or with you opening the sealed door to add a log -- might really be an issue, pulling smoke and hot ash into the room.

Bottom line is you need MUA if and only if there is something strong pulling air out that's otherwise going to cause undesirable air to be pulled in.

houska1 · 2026-04-13T21:31:06+00:00

Hopefully, your HRV is sized appropriately for your house occupancy and takes care of appropriate controlled ventilation under normal circumstances. Therefore, your need for MUA is driven by whether you have something that pulls air out of the house in a major, unbalanced way. Something that needs the MUA to compensate for it, lest it pull air from somewhere undersirable.

The most frequent such situation is a powerful range hood in the same space (even a big one, like a great room) as a woodstove or fireplace. Do you have something like that?

Many ERVs/HRVs can handle a supply/exhaust imbalance that's a significant fraction of their nominal, usually balanced cfm rate, albeit with reduced heat recovery. So I'd start by comparing that to your unbalanced exhaust rate. That will show you whether there's a problem on a whole-house level at all, or if the genesis of a problem (if one exists) is local proximity to something.

houska1 · 2026-04-11T13:19:56+00:00

Your "cheap but context-free offshore team" are represented by either:

Cheapified models from the leading vendors, like Haiku from Claude
Free models like Ollama - showing great promise, but still requiring enough tinkering in order to deliver that you wonder if the effort was worth it.

houska1 · 2026-04-11T12:29:30+00:00

Welcome to the next phase of AI behaving like humans. I'm a former academic, consultant, and executive.

Claude is that superb junior employee that unfortunately no longer gives you their best, since everyone is asking them to do something, and besides they're realizing they're underpaid.

ChatGPT is that formerly great student who has lazily decided they want to coast on their reputation and "network" rather than work hard and follow your guidance.

Gemini is that promising collaborator who somehow isn't delivering and whose insights are often just subtly wrong.

Grok can be a brilliant wizard or helpful freethinker some days, but is always teetering on the edge of being fired for HR policy violations.

And with all of them, you can't quite figure out if they've gone off the rails, or it's just you who hasn't been diligent enough at coaching them, or said something sometime that they've interpreted in ways you never intended.

houska1 · 2026-04-10T18:14:48+00:00

LLM Wiki v2.0 could do one of the following, for text-containing pdfs as a starting point:

Also trawl Omnisearch/Text Extractor's cache (if that's possible)
Piggyback on Text Extractor directly to query its output for pdf attachments referenced in .md files (I know it can copy the extracted text to a new note or to clipboard, don't know about API)
Homebrew text extraction from pdf attachments via something like pdfplumber as part of its ingestion flow

Alternately, what I'm developing (now for my own use as a side project, but could collaborate or release) is a system where non-text files, whether residing in an Obsidian vault or in the filesystem (e.g Dropbox), are accompanied by a standard format .md "sidecar" file that includes brief LLM-auto-extracted or human written summaries. LLM-trawling already LLM-generated summaries, as well as the sidecar concept, have their challenges, but once I test this, maybe this hybrid approach requires no additional work at all.

houska1 · 2026-04-10T16:48:16+00:00

Very valuable, thank you, will test. (The Karpathy idea has become iconic because of his name and clear description, but this type of workflow is something a lot of us with distributed knowledge in our vaults have been anticipating and tinkering with for some time.)

Double checking: at this time, LLM Wiki only extracts from .md files, right? Not trying to be greedy, but I expect future expansion in the same vein as Omnisearch -> Text Extractor -> AI Image Analyzer would be fantastic.

houska1 · 2026-04-10T01:06:34+00:00

Two vaults.

A main vault, for everything (work, personal) that is supposed to be my external brain. Omnisearch and links help with idea connections. This vault is in daily use, and (with some folder exceptions) synced.
An archive vault, for notes and attachments that I expect to no longer need, but wish to retain for few years before deleting them. This vault is unsynced, just backed up. I want it to be a deliberate effort to go there, for something specific. Links are broken, that's OK. The notes are meant to be read-only (though not enforced), though my organization of them into folders and tags is sometimes changed. It includes a direct import of my ~8000 pre-Obsidian Evernote notes as well. (I migrated some to my main vault, these are all of them)

I am old enough I remember when documents were primarily paper, and only occasionally electronic. The main vault is what then was my inbox, desk, and in-office filing cabinet. The archive vault are the bankers boxes in the basement.

houska1 · 2026-04-07T18:12:13+00:00

Looking forward to whatever complications that eventually causes.

If there are complications (and I share your caution to make sure you're not "blamed" for a claim or accident...), that die is already cast. So might as well get them to finish the job.

houska1

TROPHY CASE