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My Obsidian Workflow

By Neigsendoig Cocules July 26, 2025
I explain three of my Obsidian vaults, what plugins are in them, and even the file structure, among other things here.

Introduction

I would like to present my current workflow in Obsidian, a proprietary local-first knowledge management application created using Electron (version 35). For this presentation, I will go through three of the five vaults I currently have set up for Obsidian. I will be going through the following:

  • What purpose the vault serves
  • The plugins I have for that specific vault
  • How I structure the vault, and the types of notes I have set up in said vault

All of the above will be discussed in each of the different vaults I will be going over. Firstly, let me go over some details of what Obsidian is to those who are completely unaware of its existence.

What is Obsidian MD?

As mentioned in the introduction, Obsidian MD is a proprietary markdown-based note-taking application that is local-first by default. @GHOST, the proprietor of Untraceable Digital Dissident, is the one who recommended Obsidian for a local setup. Neither him nor I will recommend grabbing an account with them to sync to their computer (it isn’t worth it, and neither of us got one). On its face, it’s a simple Markdown editor that has little to no power when using it without any additional plugins and modifications.

Sure, it may be a basic Markdown editor for those who like it (and I do… way too much). The power, meanwhile, comes from the plugins. Most of them are licensed under MIT license (which is permissive, and potentially Free Software depending on certain circumstances).

However, some of them are privacy compromised, but in some cases, those plugins have settings to allow you to stay local and not connect to the internet. One example is Text Generator, which is an AI plugin. You can use local options like Ollama to keep your privacy in check. Not many of these plugins have options to allow you to do so.

The plugins discussed today will be those that are privacy-respective by default from what I researched. I will let you know if some of them are not, but are easy to fix the privacy aspect.

The Themes

There are several themes I have installed (25 of them), so I’ll run through them here:

  • Default Obsidian theme (no brainer)
  • Obsidianite, a simple but elegant dark theme
  • Tokyo Night, Tokyo Night Storm, and Tokyo Night Simple, all implementations of the Tokyo Night color sets
  • Shiba Inu, an unmaintained (at the time of writing) Japanese-inspired theme for Obsidian
    • Designed for a comfortable and scenic work environment with a Japanese influence, bringing peace to one’s experience
  • Ukiyo (Techerium’s fork), a theme designed to ease one’s eyes while reducing unnecessary empty spaces from the UI
    • Implements settings for Style Settings if one has the plugin installed
  • Faded (my favorite), a faded theme which uses custom modified CSS (using Style Settings) based upon the ITS Theme, which is used in my TTRPG vault
  • Kanagawa and Kanagawa Paper (made by the same author), a duo of themes inspired by the famous painting of Katsushika Hokusai, originally Neovim themes
    • The regular version is more vibrant than the Paper version, designed for a remixed version designed to be easy on the eyes
  • Firefly, a minimal theme offering a focused writing environment with subtle color accents
    • Designed to mix the feel of an IDE with the refined, blog-like feeling in Reading Mode
  • Sparkling Night, a theme centered around colors that sparkle (hence the name), which is a dark mode theme
    • Comes with support for sparkling checkboxes
  • Tom Kay’s Theme (known as Tom’s Theme), a theme inspired by hacker movies and video games (I think GHOST might like that)
    • Has the 54 character limit, which is to that of a GB Studio DMG mode dialog box (width is 520px)
    • Has a commented Theme.css file, in case one wanted to make their own version of the theme (I could try to do a golden version of it if I had the know how)
    • Designed for writing in particular
  • Neovim, which is designed with the default colors of Neovim (as was implemented in version 0.10)
  • Lemons Theme, a rounded, borderless and monospace theme
  • Origin, a theme designed like the golden age of Obsidian (the pre v1.0.0 Obsidian days)
  • Focus, a theme designed on focusing on one’s notes
    • Recommended font is JetBrainsMono Nerd Font
  • Tomorrow Night Bright, based upon the Tomorrow theme by Chris Kempson, it’s a theme with muted colors and sensible syntax highlighting
    • With this version by Gerard Braad, it has a black background, and is based upon the Tomorrow Night Bright theme.
  • Dark Castle, a vibrant and elegant dark theme, inspired by the beauty and mystery of medieval castles
    • Combines rich, deep colors with a clean and modern design (this one is wacky, even by my standards, though)
  • Old World, another Neovim theme port, but designed with a relaxed palette to be easy on the eyes
  • Strict, a simple contrast theme where, compared to the default:
    • The corners are pointed
    • Animations are disabled by default
    • Some indents between elements are reduced
    • App header and tabs are smaller
    • Dark highlighting of input fields and main elements are present
    • Line numbers are decorated
    • Text is justified (with the exception of code blocks)
    • Code blocks are much darker
      • Mimic that of VS Code
    • Images have a max-height variable (Image Toolkit is assumed to be used)
    • Headings have the size of main text, highlighted with a border
  • Emerald Echo, a theme using Codeberg
    • Designed for clear coloring differences between bold, italics, highlight, links and external links
    • High contrast without neon looks
    • Visual distinguishing between title levels
    • Mobile friendly
    • Hacker feel, thanks to a terminal green look
  • Modern GenZ Vibedose, a GenZ optimized theme designed those who want a clean, modern yet expressive environment
    • Designed with Live Preview mode in mind
    • Has snippets that are used in order to implement sidebar gradient coloring, which comes as a CSS file
  • Mono High Contrast, a VS Code-inspired theme focusing on a clean and minimal design
  • Mushin, a theme that embodies the Japanese zen concept of the same name, called “no-mind” when translated
    • Designed for a state of mental clarity, effortless flow, and pure focus
    • Unnecessary visual elements are removed
    • Readability and comprehension is increased
    • Smooth, natural transitions and interactions are offered
    • Form and function are balanced
    • A design encouraging a healthy and enhanced mental state

There isn’t a 3024 theme in Obsidian as far as I’m aware, so I’ll probably have to make it (I’ll need to learn the basics on how I can do that, though, and get a demo of it made).

The Vaults

The CISN Vault

The first vault I will be discussing is the one I use primarily for YouTube. This is my main vault, which has the purpose of using GHOST’s method of content creation (what I call vibe emanation) with Obsidian. With that in mind, in addition to the plugins he uses, I know of some more that I utilize as a result of me being kinda productive on some fronts for the CISN Vault.

The plugins are as follows:

  • Daily Notes (Connected to Periodic Notes)
    • This plugin is designed specifically for creating a Daily Note (you need to program in the location for these files)
    • You can have a note be a specific date format of your choice (I use DD-MM-YY out of personal preference, and international reference)
    • You can track your progress with these notes (I just use bullet points, personally speaking)
  • Templates (Connected to Templater)
    • Of course, Obsidian supports templates by default
    • Templater, on the other hand, is a plugin to give advanced functionality to templates
  • Advanced Tables
    • Designed to improve table functions
    • Also makes the writing much cleaner
  • Custom Font Loader
    • A plugin that literally says what it does, which allows the user to load custom fonts (they need to be brought to a specific folder, which is /path/to/vault/.obsidian/fonts by default)
    • Once a font is loaded to the font folder of your choice, you can select which font to override with
      • A word of warning, though: Make sure the theme you’re using is compatible with your font, unless it overrides your font preferences
  • Dataview
    • A plugin designed for complex data viewing and tracking systems
  • Harper
    • Think Grammarly or LanguageTool, but it’s local, fast, runs smoothly, and doesn’t phone home
  • QuickAdd
    • Designed to speed up capture, and page creation, without breaking one’s flow
  • Style Settings
    • Allows one to change the settings of a supported theme
      • This mostly relies on CSS that most people wouldn’t know too much (unless they program in CSS, of course)

How the vault is structured is a folder-based organization scheme. I do this with all my vaults (I even helped my former editor set up a vault, which is also folder-based), but especially this one. The folder structure is similar to GHOST’s, but with some additions I will explain shortly. The structure is as follows:

  • Daily Notes
    • Remember the Daily Notes and Periodic Notes plugins? That’s where I store my Daily Notes, and where I write what I did that day in bullet point form.
  • Ideas
    • It’s just for ideas I have, of which I want to turn to reality using the @jackspirko sometime soon (Yes, I know, it’s an Invidious link. You’re welcome.)
  • Private
    • This is designed for any sensitive information that I’ll need to encrypt (I’ll be using Picocrypt or VeraCrypt for that)
  • Projects
    • Clients for clientele for any of my work with them in the future (this also counts with collaborators, though I’ll probably have a different folder for collaboration if they’ll do something in return that isn’t monetary support)
    • Drafts for… well, drafts of a contract with a client or collaborator, or anything else that’s designed for a draft stage
  • Publishing
    • This is designed for publishing, though I don’t really use it, but have it just in case I need to use it
  • YT
    • Icebergs for Iceberg video scripts (which I’m actually working on one)
    • NCS for the scripts to any of my podcast episodes (That would be The Nëïgsëndöïg Cöcülës Show, though the Wavlake link is what I used)
  • z_Assets
    • This is designed for any assets, mainly media things
  • z_Templates
    • This will be designed for templates, where I can make notes quickly using Templater

Novel Work

Next will be a vault explicitly with the design of me working on novels in mind. I switched from novelWriter (a fantastic Markdown-like editor) to Obsidian with these plugins, like so:

  • Backlinks, showing links from other files to the current file
  • Canvas, designed to arrange and connect notes together
  • Command Palette, which basically allows command support
  • Daily Notes (self explanatory at this point)
  • File Recovery, allowing for the recovery of files, preventing accidental data loss
  • Files, self explanatory
  • Note Composer, which merges two notes, or splits one in two
  • Page Preview, designed with hovering an internal link to view its content
  • Quick Switcher, designed to switch quickly between files

The community plugins for this one are as follows, no duplicate explanations here:

  • Custom Font Loader (Duplicate)
  • File Info Panel, which creates a File Information view, which displays a bunch of information about a particular file locally
  • Graph Analysis, which allows for analysis of Obsidian graphs
  • Harper (Duplicate)
  • Highlightr, a highlighting plugin
  • Incremental writing, which allows for the review of notes and blocks over time
  • Kanban, a Markdown-based Kanban board
  • Longform, a plugin to allow for the writing of novels, screenplays, and other long-form projects
  • Outliner, which allows for the manipulation of lists
  • Quiet Outline, which allows for auto-expanding, heading rendering as MD, search support… overall, quiet
  • Recent Files, which lists files that were recently opened
  • Smart Random Note, which enhances the opening of random notes
  • Style Settings (Duplicate)
  • Typewriter Scroll, which allows for a typewriter-style scrolling scheme allowing the blinking cursor to be centered in the editor
  • Word Sprint, which is designed for writing projects, also designed for the National Novel Writing Month project (Nonowrimo), where you write a novel within the month of November (November 1-30)

Now, for the file structure, the folders are as follows (It’s a WIP as of right now):

  • Exercises, which has to do with authoring exercises (I don’t know how to do this one yet)
  • Fanfics, which has to do with fanfiction of a particular franchise (Yes, I put fanfiction in a different folder)
  • Ideas, which has to do with me shooting ideas coming straight from my mind
  • Original Projects, which is where my original projects reside
    • Drafts are the first step in this process
    • Revisions are made once the draft is finished
    • Editing is done to clean some things up
    • Proofreading is done, either by a human or AI, and notes are placed inside the project being worked on
    • Finalization is where the final touches are added to a project
    • Publishing is where the project is published
    • Publishing Archive is where the projects go once they’re no longer available anywhere
  • z_Ghost Writing, which is designed for me to ghost write when necessary
    • Clients are for those who want it done
    • Projects are for the ghost writing projects I partake in (if any)

NReads

This is the Nostr reads vault that I use on a regular basis. In fact, I made this read, How Content Creators Were Taken Hostage, and The End Times Ekklesia Era of Laodecia all using Obsidian, as well as one or two others from a previous vault. The plugins for this one are as follows:

  • Command Palette (Duplicate)
  • Daily Notes (Duplicate)
  • Templates (Duplicate)

And the community plugins are as follows:

  • Custom Font Loader (Duplicate)
  • Harper (Duplicate)
  • Nostr Writer, the Nostr plugin for Obsidian, developed by jamesmagoo (this is how I write long-form and short-form posts for Nostr using Obsidian, though I keep all my read archives local, for obvious reasons)
  • Periodic Notes (Duplicate)
  • Quick Add (Duplicate)
  • Style Settings (Duplicate)

The file structure is much smaller than the other two, which goes as follows:

  • Collaborations
    • Collaborators so I can have information on collaborators (specifically, what I worked on with them)
    • Drafts for drafts of a collaboration project
  • Long-Form Reads, where all of my reads are numbered as NRx (where x is the number of the read), which is done after the read is published
  • z_Daily Notes, designed for where my Daily Notes are (that’s self-explanatory by now)

Conclusion

Obsidian, being a simple Markdown editor if unmodified, can be extremely powerful once you know what you’re doing with the plugins you utilize. That said, it’s super easy to use once you get the hang of it, but once you make it the powerhouse that you desire for it to be, then the real productivity begins.

However, if Obsidian isn’t your thing, then there are some options you can take a look at:

  • Logseq, seen as the Obsidian competitor; licensed under AGPL-3
  • Joplin, a non local-first note-taking application; licensed under MIT
  • Beaver Notes, a local-only plain text and Markdown editor made using Vue and other JS libraries; licensed under MIT
  • Zettlr, a unified writing platform, and has Zotero implementation, and uses TS, JS, Vue and Less; which explains the license being GPL-3 probably….
  • Notesnook, a Pakistani-made note-taking application that keeps notes organized and synced (though it’s local-first), licensed under GPL-3
  • Standard Notes (another one of GHOST’s recommendations), Proton’s note-taking application, highly extensible and encrypted; licensed under AGPL-3
  • AppFlowy, an AI-based Notion alternative; licensed under AGPL-3
  • CherryTree, a hierarchical note-talking software that’s entirely local, and features many little things that make up for the lack of online support, licensed under GPL-3
  • Trilium Next, another hierarchical knowledge base application that’s local-first, but end-to-end encrypted; licensed under AGPL-3
  • SiYuan, a Chinese Markdown editor with bidirectional-link note-taking, and has WYSIWYG support, and is pretty close to Obsidian; licensed under AGPL-3
  • AFFiNE, a Notion and Miro alternative from China, and another knowledge base, utilizing planning, sorting, and creation; licensed under MIT with a Code of Conduct
  • Reor, an AI-powered desktop note-taking application, automatically linking related ideas, answers questions on notes, and provides a semantic search, all local and Obsidian-like; licensed under AGPL-3

There are many more like this that support Markdown, work offline, and are note-taking applications. They’re all Free Software, and designed for Linux. However, it’d be way too much for me to get into, so I’ll probably have to do something about maybe taking a look at some of these so I can give my thoughts on them.

That said, though, enjoy Obsidian your way!

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