Obsidian Vault Template

A reusable Obsidian vault for projects, research, study, and collaborative work. It keeps notes in plain Markdown so the vault can be versioned, shared, and edited outside Obsidian.

What’s included

A domain-neutral folder structure for knowledge, projects, meetings, decisions, references, assets, temporary notes, and archives.
Seven note templates with consistent YAML properties.
An Open actions dashboard powered by the Tasks plugin.
Git synchronization configured for periodic pull, commit, and push.
Community plugins for Git, Tasks, Excalidraw, Terminal, and optional Claudian AI assistance.

Get started

Create a new repository from this template on GitHub, or copy this folder to a new location.
Clone the new repository if it is hosted on GitHub.
Open the folder in Obsidian with Open folder as vault.
Trust the vault when Obsidian asks whether to enable community plugins.
Open Getting started and complete the checklist.

The template is intentionally domain-neutral. Rename or remove folders as your vault requires, but keep Templates/ and Assets/ unless you also update the corresponding Obsidian settings.

Folder guide

Content	Location
General knowledge and guides	`Knowledge/`
Projects	`Projects/`
Meeting notes	`Meetings/`
Decisions	`Decisions/`
Papers, links, and sources	`References/`
Note templates	`Templates/`
Images and small attachments	`Assets/`
Temporary or uncategorized notes	`TempMisc/`
Finished or obsolete material	`Archive/`

Keep large documents, datasets, videos, and generated deliverables in a purpose-built storage location and link to them from the relevant note.

Daily workflow

Start structured notes with a template from Templates/.
Write action items in the note where they arise; Open actions collects every unfinished checkbox automatically.
Link related notes instead of duplicating information.
Pull before making large edits when several people share the repository.
Commit and push after a work session, or let the Git plugin sync on its configured schedule.

Templates and properties

Use Insert template from the command palette to start a note. Templates provide a small, consistent property block:

Property	Meaning
`type`	`note`, `project`, `experiment`, `meeting`, `decision`, `reference`, or `procedure`
`project`	Optional link to the project note
`status`	`draft`, `active`, `completed`, `superseded`, or `archived`
`created`	Creation date in `YYYY-MM-DD` format
`tags`	Free-form keywords

See Note conventions for the full guidance.

Tasks and action items

Write ordinary Markdown checkboxes in meetings, projects, decisions, and other notes. Optional due dates and project tags make the dashboard more useful:

- [ ] Review the draft (Owner) 📅 2026-09-05 #project/example

Open Open actions for the vault-wide view. See Action items for the convention.

Git synchronization

The bundled Git plugin is configured for periodic pull, commit, and push. For manual synchronization, use the command palette:

Git: Pull before starting collaborative work.
Git: Commit-and-sync after making changes.

Do not store passwords, access tokens, or private keys in the vault. Handle GitHub authentication through Git, GitHub Desktop, or your operating system’s credential manager.

Optional plugins

The repository bundles these community plugins:

Git for version control and synchronization.
Tasks for live task queries.
Excalidraw for diagrams and free-form drawings.
Terminal for an integrated shell.
Claudian for optional AI-assisted work on the vault.

Claudian is desktop-only and requires a supported command-line provider to be installed and configured locally. Review plugin permissions before using it on a shared or sensitive vault.

Rules of thumb

Keep notes small enough to merge comfortably.
Link instead of copying the same fact into multiple notes.
Mark outdated notes as superseded or archived instead of deleting useful history.
Keep credentials and sensitive data out of the repository.
Agree on major folder or property changes before applying them to a shared vault.

obsidian-vault-template