Obsidian × Raindrop Knowledge Pipeline

Markdown knowledge base architecture: Raindrop.io for capture, Obsidian (with Sync) for distillation and permanent notes. Everything ends as plain Markdown — portable, greppable, vendor-independent.

Flow

 capture              triage                distill              retrieve
┌───────────┐    ┌───────────────┐    ┌────────────────┐    ┌──────────────┐
│ Raindrop  │───▶│ weekly review │───▶│ Obsidian vault │───▶│ runbooks ·   │
│ (browser, │    │ keep / discard│    │ permanent notes│    │ references · │
│  mobile)  │    │ tag           │    │ + templates    │    │ cert study   │
└───────────┘    └───────────────┘    └────────────────┘    └──────────────┘

The rule that keeps the system honest: a bookmark is not knowledge. Raindrop is a holding pen; anything worth keeping gets rewritten in my own words into the vault, then the bookmark is archived.

Vault structure (sanitized)

00-inbox/          Unprocessed captures, cleared weekly
10-infrastructure/ AD, Entra, Intune, M365, networking notes
20-runbooks/       Step-by-step operational procedures
30-cert-study/     AZ-900 / AZ-104 / CCNA working notes
40-references/     Distilled external material (from Raindrop)
90-meta/           Templates, taxonomy, vault conventions

Tag taxonomy

Namespace	Examples	Purpose
#tech/	#tech/entra #tech/intune #tech/dns	What it's about
#type/	#type/runbook #type/gotcha #type/study	What kind of note
#status/	#status/verified #status/draft	Trust level

Three namespaces, no more. Tags answer what, kind, trust — folders answer where it lives. Search crosses both.

Templates

templates/runbook.md — procedures with preconditions, verification, and rollback sections. A runbook without a rollback section is a liability.

templates/troubleshooting-log.md — symptom → isolation → root cause → fix, written during the incident, not after.

Automation

scripts/git-vault-sync.sh — cron/launchd-friendly auto-sync of the vault to a private git remote: pull --rebase, timestamped commit, push, with a lock against overlapping runs and full logging. Git-based sync coexists fine with Obsidian Sync — the git copy doubles as diffable history.

Raindrop conventions

• Collections mirror the vault's top-level folders
• Every save gets at least one #tech/ tag at capture time — future-you won't remember why it mattered
• Export: Raindrop supports CSV/HTML backup; the vault itself is the system of record

License

MIT