Flatpack

An Obsidian Templater template that combines some or all of your notes into one Master Document — pulling in your embeds while restraining the embed "echo" from heavily cross-embedded vaults, and keeping your folder structure intact.

The echo problem

Embed the same note in ten places, then bake your vault, and that note's content gets copied ten times. Shared sections balloon. A clean vault turns into a bloated master document where the important stuff repeats over and over:

Master

ALL GPT KNOWLEDGE

[1,200 lines of content] ...

ALL GPT KNOWLEDGE

[the same 1,200 lines] ...

ALL GPT KNOWLEDGE

[again]

## What Flatpack does instead

It keeps the first copy and turns every repeat into a one-line pointer:

Master

ALL GPT KNOWLEDGE

[1,200 lines — once] ...

🔁 See: ALL GPT KNOWLEDGE ... 🔁 See: ALL GPT KNOWLEDGE

Same information, none of the bloat. In testing, a vault that baked to 104,000 lines came out as 9,700 with Flatpack.

Your folder structure becomes the heading hierarchy automatically: a top-level folder = `##`, a subfolder = `###`, the files inside = `####`, and so on.

## Install

1. Copy `Flatpack.md` into your Obsidian `templates` folder
2. Open any note → Templater → Insert Template → Flatpack
3. Your Master Document appears

## Configure

Five settings live at the top of the template — these are the only things you touch:

| Setting | What it does |
|---------|--------------|
| `TITLE` | Name of the output note, and its top heading |
| `ROOTS` | `[]` for your whole vault, or a list like `["Projects","Research"]` to combine only those folders |
| `EXCLUDE_FOLDERS` | Folder names to skip (e.g. `["templates","Archive"]`) |
| `EXCLUDE_FILES` | Note names to skip (e.g. `["Untitled"]`) |
| `OUT_FOLDER` | Where to save the result (`""` = vault root) |

## Examples

**Your whole vault:**
```javascript
const TITLE = "Master";
const ROOTS = [];
const EXCLUDE_FOLDERS = ["templates"];
const EXCLUDE_FILES = [];
const OUT_FOLDER = "";

Just your Projects folder:

const TITLE = "All Projects";
const ROOTS = ["Projects"];
const EXCLUDE_FOLDERS = [];
const EXCLUDE_FILES = [];
const OUT_FOLDER = "";

Projects + Research, skipping templates and drafts:

const TITLE = "Working Set";
const ROOTS = ["Projects","Research"];
const EXCLUDE_FOLDERS = ["templates"];
const EXCLUDE_FILES = ["Untitled"];
const OUT_FOLDER = "Master";

How it works

• Walks the folders you selected and combines every note into one document
• Folder depth sets the heading level, so your structure stays readable
• Keeps the first copy of any embedded note; later repeats become > 🔁 See: pointers
• Notes are sorted alphabetically within each folder
• File attachments (images, PDFs, spreadsheets) become 📎 [filename] placeholders
• Broken links are flagged with > (unresolved: [link])
• Empty folders are skipped, and your source notes are never touched

Requirements

• Obsidian with the Templater plugin installed

Tips

• Run it from any note — it doesn't read the note you're in, it reads the vault
• Re-run anytime to regenerate as your vault grows
• Tweak ROOTS to make focused documents — one per project, one per area, whatever you need

Changelog

v.1.1.1

• Fixed FINAL_DESTINATION move operation (use vault.rename instead of adapter.move)

v.1.1.0

• Added FINAL_DESTINATION setting to move files after creation

• Added page breaks (---) between files for cleaner PDF exports

• Fixed file path tracking after move operation

• Improved notification message to show actual save location

• Fixed duplicate code line

• Better error handling for move failures

• Auto-append date to filename (YYYY-MM-DD format)

• customize FILENAME prefix only

v.1.0.0

• Initial release: vault scanning, deduplication, folder-depth heading levels

Requirements

• Obsidian with the Templater plugin installed