# digital garden — CLAUDE.md This is Gerry's personal Obsidian vault, published via Obsidian Publish to https://gerry.work. It is not a codebase — it's a mix of original writing, book/reading notes, and web clippings. Gerry is the sole author and creator. ## What this vault is A digital garden: browsed by topic, not chronology. Content is unpolished and evolving by design — don't try to "finish" or over-tidy notes unless asked. - **Home.md** — the vault's own front-page framing, in Gerry's voice. Read this before writing anything meant to represent the garden to visitors. - **Inventory.md** — an auto-generated structural summary of the vault, regenerated periodically by Claude. Treat it as a snapshot, not ground truth — regenerate rather than trust it if it looks stale. ## Top-level structure - **Analogue/** — pens, pencils, paper, notebooks (small, has an Attachments subfolder for photos) - **Clippings/** — now in active use (as of Aug 2026): holds standalone web clippings using the standard clipper frontmatter pattern, e.g. "On the Poetics of Canine Narration" and "Writing a Novel and Hiking a Mountain Are Pretty Similar, Actually." Its relationship to `Reading/Readwise` and `INBOX/` as clipping homes hasn't been fully clarified with Gerry — when filing a new clip, check whether it belongs here vs. those two before picking a default. - **Digital/** — research tools & workflows: `AI` (Claude/ChatGPT/Ollama/Perplexity notes), `Apple`, `Digital Gardens` (notes on other people's gardens, MOC-style), `LaTeX`, `Obsidian` (plugin notes, YAML, backlinks, dataview sandbox), `Software`, `Web`, `Online` (a single note listing Gerry's homes on the web — note this lives nested here, not as its own top-level folder) - **INBOX/** — unsorted holding area for new clippings/drafts awaiting filing. Has its own Attachments subfolder. **New notes should default here unless the user says where to file them.** - **Misc./** — Evernote-archive migrations, one subfolder per topic (`Cats`, `Funny`, `Health`, `Music`, `Pepper`, `Photography`, `Society`, `Tai Chi`), each with its own Attachments subfolder where applicable. Notes here came from Evernote exports (`.resources` folders flattened into `Attachments`) — filenames were rewritten from raw export/article titles to short descriptive titles in some subfolders (notably `Health`) but not others, so don't assume the filename traces back to an original clipped title. `Music` (26 notes) and `Photography`/`Society` (1-2 notes each, no landing note yet) are newer and still growing — flag to Gerry if any of these outgrow "misc" status and warrant promotion to a top-level folder. `Photography` now has an Attachments subfolder alongside its 2 notes (Leica M series, Nikon Z6) — worth watching, may be the next candidate for promotion. `Tai Chi` has grown past stub status: 8 notes now, cross-linked with each other (e.g. individual technique notes alongside history/style overviews) — still no landing/MOC note, but this is a stronger promotion candidate than Photography at this point; worth raising with Gerry. - **Reading/** — by far the largest section: `Readwise/Articles`, `Readwise/Books`, `Readwise/Podcasts`, `Readwise/Full Document Contents` (full-text archives, synced from Readwise — don't hand-edit these), plus `Authors`, `Bookshops`, `Poetry`, `Misc. reccomendations` (folder name has this typo — don't "fix" it without asking, it's the actual name on disk). Also has several top-level notes directly in `Reading/`: `Reading.md` (landing note), `Currently reading.md` (active reading list by format), MOC-style topic round-ups like `Aging and retirement.md` and `Writing craft and publishing.md` (curated links into `Readwise/Articles`, tagged `moc`/`clippings`), and one-off notes like `Question 7.md` (a pre-read review round-up, not Gerry's own commentary). **Note:** `Question 7.md` also exists as a byte-identical duplicate in `INBOX/` — unresolved, ask Gerry which copy is canonical before editing either. - **Writing/** — craft notes: memoir structure, craft-book summaries, writers' tips, a `Literary Journals` subfolder profiling markets, plus `Craft`, `MasterClass`, `Memoir` subfolders and a `Writing.md` landing note - **Templates/** — Templater templates (currently just `note.md`) ## Frontmatter conventions Two distinct patterns are in use — match whichever fits the note's origin: **Original/craft notes** (the Templater default, see `Templates/note.md`): ```yaml --- created: '2026-07-04' last_edited: '2026-07-04' tags: [] --- ``` **Web clippings** (Readwise/clipper-style): ```yaml --- title: "..." source: "https://..." author: - "[[Author Name]]" published: 2023-08-11 created: 2026-06-06 description: "..." tags: - "clippings" --- ``` Don't invent a third pattern. Dates are `YYYY-MM-DD`. Tags are lowercase, single words where possible (`writing`, `clippings`). **Exception:** notes in `Misc./` (Evernote migrations) use `created`/`last_edited`/`tags` like the Templater default, but keep a bare `source:` line (no `title`/`author`/`description`) when the original Evernote clip had one — a hybrid of the two patterns above, specific to that migration. ## Linking & style - Wikilinks (`[[Note Name]]`) are the norm, including links to folder index notes (e.g. `[[Analogue/Analogue|Analogue]]`) for folders that have a same-named landing note. - Footnote-style citations (`[^1_1]`) and `[cite:N]` markers show up in AI-assisted/clipped notes — these come from source generation, don't strip them without asking. - Headings, bold, and tables are used freely inside notes (this is content, not chat — normal Markdown formatting rules apply here, unlike conversational replies). ## Publishing - Published via the **Obsidian Publish** plugin (`.obsidian/publish.json`), not a static site generator — there's no build step to run. - `publish.css` is a hand-maintained custom theme (Solarized-inspired, light/dark). If asked to touch site styling, edit this file directly and preserve the existing CSS variable structure/comments. - Installed plugins of note: `dataview` + `dataview-publisher`, `readwise-official` (syncs Full Document Contents), `templater-obsidian`, `obsidian-linter`, `multi-properties`. ## Working in this vault - **Don't invent facts, citations, or sources.** Especially in Reading/ and Clippings/ — if unsure whether something is Gerry's original claim vs. clipped source material, ask. - **Follow existing folder placement and frontmatter patterns** rather than introducing new schemes. - **New/unsorted content → INBOX/** by default. - **Flag weak organization or duplicate notes** rather than silently restructuring — this is a personal, evolving system; changes to structure should be explained. - Keep the informal, first-person voice already present in Home.md when writing anything user-facing (bios, landing notes, etc.) — don't default to generic "professional" copy.