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kind: guide status: active created: 2026-08-25 tags:

• vault/onboarding

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Obsidian Template Vault

A reusable, privacy-safe starting point for a personal knowledge system organized around PARA: projects, areas, resources, and archives. The role-based root folders are stable and are used by the included templates and Base views.

Start Here

1. Create an area for an ongoing responsibility in areas/.
2. Create a project with a finite outcome in projects/, and associate it with an area.
3. Collect reference material in resources/.
4. Keep canonical knowledge in focused source notes in notes/; use contextual overview notes to connect and embed that knowledge for a specific task.
5. Use the templates in templates/ when creating notes.

The fictional [[areas/homelab|homelab area]] demonstrates the complete hierarchy. It contains the [[projects/homelab-documentation-baseline|homelab documentation baseline]] and [[projects/homelab-wiki-launch|homelab wiki launch]] projects, which connect to [[resources/homelab-operations-reference|homelab operations]] and [[resources/wiki-authoring-reference|wiki authoring]] resources. Start with [[notes/homelab-overview|the homelab overview]] or [[notes/wiki-overview|the wiki overview]] to see contextual notes embedding canonical atomic-note sections.

See [[CONVENTIONS]] for folder roles, metadata schema, naming patterns, and routing rules.

Templates and Plugins

The core Templates plugin should use templates/ as its template folder. The included Templater community plugin is configured for the same folder and powers the dynamic fields in the base templates. Use Calendar with Daily Notes if you want calendar-based access to journal entries.

Other installed community plugins, such as PDF++, are optional. Keep a plugin only when it supports your own workflow; templates that depend on a plugin say so in their folder guidance.

Use [[templates/base/notes-template|the notes template]] for atomic source notes. For a contextual wiki note, set type: contextual, explain its audience or task, and embed only stable headings from the canonical source notes. The [[notes/homelab-overview|homelab overview]] and [[notes/wiki-overview|wiki overview]] demonstrate this pattern.

[!tip] The example notes are fictional and safe to replace or remove after you understand the structure.