/second-brain

Schema (fallback)

Authoritative source: <vault>/CLAUDE.md. This file is a fallback used only when the vault's CLAUDE.md is missing.

The schema below mirrors the user's vault as of 2026-06-17. Update this file only if you're seeding a new vault from scratch.

Folder structure

raw/          → Unprocessed source material (articles, highlights, ideas, notes, images)
wiki/         → AI-compiled knowledge base (topic pages, interlinked, with INDEX.md)
  INDEX.md    → Master index of all wiki pages with brief descriptions
outputs/      → Saved Q&A results, analyses, slide decks, research summaries
Projects/     → Project-specific notes (DO NOT modify)
Daily/        → Daily notes (DO NOT modify)
Templates/    → Note templates (DO NOT modify)
Inbox/        → Quick capture (DO NOT modify — see Inbox/Quick Capture.md)

raw/ — file naming

Type prefixes:

Personal / intellectual

• article- — web article, blog post, news
• idea- — your own idea or proposal
• highlights- — book/article highlights
• braindump- — unstructured thinking
• note- — quick reference
• resource- — non-text (PDF, video, podcast, image)
• tweet- — single X post or thread
• bookmark- — URL + a one-line "why I saved this"

Business / operational (agency, consulting, client work)

• call- — call/meeting transcript (Riverside, Zoom, Otter)
• meeting- — meeting notes (your own, not auto-transcripts)
• screenshot- — image capture with context (UI, dashboard, competitor)
• sop- — standard operating procedure
• email- — customer / sales / prospect email worth preserving
• objection- — sales objection heard from a prospect (with context)
• ticket- — support ticket pattern worth remembering
• person- — contact / profile note (think CRM-lite, like Gbrain's people entity)

First line of each file:

source: <URL if applicable, or "call with X on YYYY-MM-DD", "email from X", etc.>
captured: YYYY-MM-DD

wiki/ — page format

# Topic Name

Brief summary (2–3 sentences).

## Key Concepts
- Concept with explanation

## Details
Main content organized by subtopic.

## Connections
- [[Related Topic]] — how it connects
- [[Another Topic]] — how it connects

## Sources
- `raw/article-example.md` — what was drawn from this source

wiki/INDEX.md — format

# Wiki Index

## <Category>
- [[Page Name]] — brief one-line description

## <Another Category>
- [[Page Name]] — brief one-line description

Standard categories (extend as needed):

• Creative
• Health & Longevity
• Faith & Personal Growth
• Business
• Personal Growth
• Tech
• Hobbies
• Sci-Fi
• Pets
• Personal Reference

Suggested wiki pages that compose with other makerskills

Pages whose existence makes other skills sharper:

Outputs categories

The outputs/ folder hosts generated artifacts. Common kinds:

• Posts (social drafts, blog drafts)
• Reports
• Proposals (especially for agency work)
• SOPs (your own + client deliverables)
• Audits (typical agency deliverable)
• Research briefs (composes with deep-research)
• Sales scripts
• Client summaries
• Slide deck content (handed off to slide-deck)

Rules

• One page per concept — not per source
• Use [[wikilinks]] for all internal references
• Keep pages focused — split if >500 words
• INDEX.md is the root — keep current
• Connections section is mandatory — every page links to ≥1 other page
• No orphan pages
• Summaries are concise
• Preserve nuance — don't flatten contradictions

Publishing alternatives — how to render outputs/

When outputs/<file>.md should leave the vault as a polished artifact (research brief to a client, summary to share, slide-deck source, archive PDF), use one of these:

Default: pandoc + shared stylesheet

# PDF (requires basictex: brew install --cask basictex, then once:
# sudo tlmgr update --self && sudo tlmgr install collection-fontsrecommended)
pandoc "outputs/<file>.md" \
  --css ~/.local/share/makerskills/render.css \
  --metadata title="<title>" \
  --pdf-engine=xelatex \
  -o "outputs/<file>.pdf"

# HTML (standalone, CSS inlined — drop into a static host or email as attachment)
pandoc "outputs/<file>.md" \
  --standalone \
  --embed-resources \
  --css ~/.local/share/makerskills/render.css \
  --metadata title="<title>" \
  -o "outputs/<file>.html"

Shared stylesheet at ~/.local/share/makerskills/render.css — also used by read-book. Edit freely; system-font + max-width 720 + print-optimized.

Heavier option: Quarto (.qmd)

Quarto is Posit's publishing system — markdown-superset with executable code blocks (Python/R/Julia), native citations + bibliography, cross-references, equations, and multi-format output (HTML, PDF, slides, ePub, books, websites).

Worth adopting if you want any of:

• A renderable public-facing personal handbook / book / website from the wiki (Quarto projects build full sites with navigation, search, themes)
• Native citations in research briefs (BibTeX/CSL → consistent inline + bibliography)
• Executable analysis inline in notes (bloodwork charts, financial models, ML experiments)
• Cross-references to figures / tables / sections by name (richer than positional markdown links)

Costs:

• Obsidian doesn't render .qmd natively — daily-driver editing UX degrades
• [[wikilinks]] are Obsidian-only; Quarto wants standard markdown links
• YAML frontmatter conventions differ from Obsidian's
• New tool (brew install quarto, ~500MB) + optional Python/R engines
• Learning curve (callouts, cross-ref keys, project config, _quarto.yml)
• Most second-brain operations (capture, compile, query) gain nothing from Quarto

Status: skipped by default. Pandoc + shared CSS handles 80% of publishing needs with 5% of the complexity. Revisit Quarto if/when:

1. You decide to publish the wiki as a personal handbook site, OR
2. You start writing a book using the corpus, OR
3. You add executable analysis to your notes

For everyday capture / compile / query / outputs, plain markdown + pandoc is plenty.