00:00:00If you're using Clawed Code and its lack of memory
00:00:03makes it feel like you're starting every single session
00:00:05from scratch, then you gotta check out this one tool
00:00:08that can fix all your problems.
00:00:10And that tool is Obsidian.
00:00:12It's free, it's simple to use,
00:00:14and it's gonna help us unlock persistent memory
00:00:16for Clawed Code all while boosting our performance
00:00:19in the process.
00:00:20This allows us to do things that other tools
00:00:22like OpenClaw claim to do yet fail completely at,
00:00:25like actually remember things about us
00:00:28and act in a way that a real human personal assistant would.
00:00:31Now, Obsidian is one of those rare tools
00:00:33that really does feel like a value add across the board.
00:00:36So I'm really excited for this lesson.
00:00:38So let's just hop into it.
00:00:40So let's first talk about what Obsidian actually is.
00:00:42Obsidian is an orchestration layer, an organization layer
00:00:46on top of your markdown files
00:00:48in a specific folder known as a vault.
00:00:51Obsidian is free, it is not open source,
00:00:54but everything we create and use with Obsidian is ours, right?
00:00:58We own it, Obsidian does it, there's no vendor lock.
00:01:00This isn't like Notion.
00:01:01And the real value add for Obsidian from our point of view
00:01:05is its ability for us to see how our different notes
00:01:09and files and folders connect.
00:01:11So if I have something open right here,
00:01:13you can see how this connects
00:01:15to other related notes and files, right?
00:01:18And you can see over here on the right,
00:01:19we also have these like visual graphs
00:01:21that show us how different documents
00:01:24and projects relate to one another.
00:01:25Obsidian also has a huge plugin community.
00:01:28So everything that you'll see today
00:01:30is just on the base level Obsidian,
00:01:32but there are 2,736 ways to spice it up if you want to.
00:01:37But why should you care about any of that?
00:01:38How does Obsidian actually relate to you
00:01:42and Claude code and your productivity?
00:01:44Well, to answer that question,
00:01:45you need to understand the symbiotic relationship
00:01:48between these two things and you.
00:01:51So first and foremost, we have Obsidian and you.
00:01:53What do you get out of this relationship?
00:01:55Well, you get what I just saw, right?
00:01:56The ability to look at files and click through it
00:01:59and see how they connect and have like visual insight
00:02:02between all of your folders and notes.
00:02:04The problem is for me to actually do this
00:02:07and get the full value from Obsidian as a user,
00:02:09I have to actually draft up all these markdown files
00:02:13and I have to draft them up in a specific way
00:02:15that they link, right?
00:02:16I have to like make sure, hey, I do the double brackets,
00:02:18I find the note I want, I link it, right?
00:02:20Pain in the butt, you're never gonna do this in reality,
00:02:23right, no one's manually doing this in today's day and age.
00:02:25Enter, obviously, Claude code.
00:02:28Claude code will do all of that for us.
00:02:30Claude code essentially supercharges
00:02:33the Obsidian experience for you
00:02:35because whatever you tell Claude code,
00:02:38whether that's through text or prompts or braindubs
00:02:40or just, you know, verbal diarrhea, right?
00:02:42Whatever you give Claude code,
00:02:44it's going to turn that into a proper markdown file
00:02:48in the Obsidian format, link it all together
00:02:50so you the end user can get better insights into your notes
00:02:55and your projects and your thoughts.
00:02:56But if that's all it did,
00:02:57we still really wouldn't care, right?
00:02:59Neat, I can see more of my thoughts.
00:03:00I already know my thoughts, they're in my brain.
00:03:02How does this affect Claude code?
00:03:03Well, by virtue of creating an organized hierarchy
00:03:08of your notes and actually connecting them all,
00:03:11Obsidian improves Claude code.
00:03:14Now think of all this in terms of Claude code
00:03:16acting as a personal assistant for you
00:03:18and I use that demonstration on purpose
00:03:20because that's the sort of use case
00:03:23where you will get the most value add
00:03:25in this sorts of situation
00:03:26because when it comes to personal context,
00:03:28it's very wide in terms of breadth
00:03:31and the things you're talking about.
00:03:32Think of like daily notes
00:03:33and random projects you're working on,
00:03:34things you're just throwing Claude codes away, right?
00:03:36Huge breadth and it compounds over time, right?
00:03:39So if we're just talking about daily notes
00:03:41for a couple of weeks, easy enough.
00:03:43How about daily notes for a couple of years, right?
00:03:45These things add up.
00:03:46And so by having an organized system of these notes
00:03:50and having them linked together
00:03:51and they actually make sense when you look at them,
00:03:53this helps Claude code, right?
00:03:56Because when you ask it to do stuff
00:03:58and gain insights on things
00:03:59and essentially find relationships between documents,
00:04:02it helps to have that organization.
00:04:04Because that helps Claude code, that helps you, right?
00:04:08Whatever gives Claude code better performance and insight,
00:04:10ultimately that rolls downhill.
00:04:12And hopefully by getting better insights from Claude code
00:04:16based on your interactions with Claude code,
00:04:18that will improve interactions down the line,
00:04:21which will then become files that are properly notated
00:04:25and organized inside of Obsidian,
00:04:26which then come to you who can actually see them.
00:04:29And this whole thing isn't just a black box.
00:04:31That's the value add here with Obsidian.
00:04:34Obsidian is supercharged by Claude code
00:04:36by virtue of organizing your files
00:04:38that improves Claude codes performance,
00:04:40which ultimately makes you happy.
00:04:43That's the relationship.
00:04:44That's what this is all about.
00:04:45Now, you might be thinking that's all well and good Chase,
00:04:50but like, can't I just have a giant file system
00:04:53and throw markdown files in there forever and ever and ever
00:04:56and won't Claude code being as effective as it is,
00:04:59still be able to handle all those files?
00:05:01The answer is yes, to a certain degree.
00:05:03And this is kind of like a spectrum, right?
00:05:05Like on one hand, you can be the average user
00:05:08over here on the left, who's very lazy
00:05:09and uses Claude code as a personal assistant.
00:05:11You just throw crap at it.
00:05:13If you think of it as like being in a warehouse
00:05:15with all of your files and data,
00:05:16like you just have papers on the ground, right?
00:05:19They're just thrown everywhere.
00:05:20Claude code is good enough to handle this.
00:05:22Although that disorganization does come at a cost.
00:05:25The other cost is to you, right?
00:05:27This then becomes a black box.
00:05:29You as the human cannot possibly sift
00:05:30through all that information, right?
00:05:32So you aren't operating at full capacity
00:05:34and neither is Claude code.
00:05:36On the other end of the spectrum, right?
00:05:39We could go away from just markdown files
00:05:42in a folder system and we can instead go nuts
00:05:44and create some sort of like graph rag system, right?
00:05:46This nuclear bomb approach that's gonna have embeddings
00:05:48and analysis and all this stuff.
00:05:50The problem is if we do the rag approach,
00:05:53for most people, that's too much.
00:05:55And it's also too much to expect from them
00:05:56to be able to build and maintain that, right?
00:05:58If over here, you know, we have papers thrown on the ground,
00:06:01this is the library of Congress, right?
00:06:04You don't need that.
00:06:05What we need is a happy medium, right?
00:06:07And what is that happy medium in most cases?
00:06:09Well, it's actually obsidian because instead of papers
00:06:11on the ground or the library of Congress,
00:06:13I just want like a filing cabinet
00:06:15that's kind of organized for me.
00:06:17And then the offer here is,
00:06:18obsidian is gonna be the filing cabinet
00:06:20and it's a filing cabinet that is free,
00:06:22both in terms of actual cost
00:06:24and it's not like this is costing us tokens.
00:06:26This isn't some sort of heavy framework on top of Claude code
00:06:28changing how we interact with it.
00:06:30This is kind of honestly free value, you know?
00:06:35And it's not free value in terms of like,
00:06:37oh, if you use obsidian after this video,
00:06:39your life's gonna change
00:06:40and you're gonna be able to do projects you couldn't.
00:06:41Not really, but it's one of these on the margin plays
00:06:45that I think are kind of rare
00:06:46and that like it's almost just like a straight plus
00:06:49with no negatives, right?
00:06:50Someone's walking down the street,
00:06:51they're just gonna hand you 20 bucks.
00:06:53Are you gonna say no because it's not a hundred bucks?
00:06:55Absolutely not.
00:06:56You're gonna take it.
00:06:57So this video is about how do we take that $20 and use it.
00:07:01Now to use it, we first need to download it.
00:07:03So you're just gonna head to obsidian.md
00:07:05or just Google obsidian, go to the download page
00:07:08and download and run through the installer.
00:07:10It's gonna ask you a couple of questions.
00:07:12It's gonna ask you, where do you want your vault
00:07:14and what do you want to call it?
00:07:16So the vault is just a folder where essentially
00:07:19the obsidian orchestration is gonna live.
00:07:21The folder could be anywhere on your computer.
00:07:23It could be on your desktop.
00:07:24So you just have the folder.
00:07:26It's known as obsidian vault,
00:07:28but you don't have to call it the vault for this demo.
00:07:30It is literally called the vault.
00:07:31And inside of that folder,
00:07:33that's where all our markdown files are going to be.
00:07:35So the vault could have sub folders like, you know,
00:07:39daily notes, research and projects.
00:07:41And inside daily notes are the markdown files, right?
00:07:45All of the daily notes for that particular day
00:07:48as just text documents.
00:07:50And like you saw, if I click on those text documents,
00:07:52I have the obsidian document.
00:07:56When I say obsidian document, I'm talking about this, right?
00:07:57We can look at this inside of something like our terminal,
00:08:00or we can actually open up obsidian and look at it.
00:08:02Same thing.
00:08:02So after you download it,
00:08:03just decide where you want the vault to live.
00:08:05I suggest putting it wherever you put
00:08:07most of your cloud code projects.
00:08:09And now to have this relationship with obsidian cloud code,
00:08:13you will just start a new project inside of that vault.
00:08:16Once you create the vault,
00:08:17all you have to do is open your terminal,
00:08:18navigate to a folder inside the vault,
00:08:21or just be in the vault itself and start up cloud code.
00:08:23You can see here, I'm inside mine, users chase the vault.
00:08:27And over here on the left-hand side,
00:08:29you can see all of the files and folders.
00:08:32And this is my personal thing.
00:08:33And most of it's related to content creation.
00:08:35So you can see stuff for research, for projects, for people,
00:08:38inbox, daily notes, et cetera, et cetera.
00:08:40Now, when I look at these files inside of cursor,
00:08:43it looks just like a normal markdown file
00:08:44because that's all it is.
00:08:45Now there's certain conventions that obsidian follows,
00:08:48but guess who knows these conventions?
00:08:51Cloud code knows these conventions.
00:08:53So when you're working inside the vault,
00:08:55all you have to do is tell cloud code
00:08:57inside of its cloud.md file and say, hey,
00:09:01all markdown files need to follow obsidian conventions.
00:09:05Furthermore, there are a million and one repos out there
00:09:08that have to do with creating obsidian skills for cloud code.
00:09:11So if you wanna take it a step further
00:09:13and give cloud code specific obsidian skills,
00:09:16just Google obsidian skills repos,
00:09:19or literally just tell cloud code, hey,
00:09:21go ahead and do a web search on the best practices
00:09:25for cloud code and obsidian skills and create those, right?
00:09:28That easy.
00:09:29So now let's talk about how we can use this markdown file
00:09:32set up in this sort of memory infrastructure
00:09:35to actually improve cloud code,
00:09:36especially from the position of a personal assistant.
00:09:39And the way we're gonna do that is through the cloud.md file.
00:09:43And that's what you're looking at right here.
00:09:45So remember the cloud.md file traditionally is a file
00:09:49that you use in your project
00:09:50that essentially lists all your conventions.
00:09:52You also have the ability to do something like slash init,
00:09:55right?
00:09:56And cloud will automatically go through your entire code base,
00:09:59figure out what you're doing and why
00:10:01and put it in this file, this cloud.md.
00:10:03It almost acts like a system message in the sense
00:10:06that cloud code is always gonna be looking at this, right?
00:10:09To make sure it's doing what you say.
00:10:12Now, recently, relatively recently,
00:10:15there has been a big push against things like cloud.md files
00:10:20and slash init in general.
00:10:22Now this is in response to this study
00:10:24that came out last month called evaluating agents.md,
00:10:28are repository level context files helpful for coding agents?
00:10:32I'll put a link to this down below.
00:10:33The long and short of it is,
00:10:35is that this study pretty much said
00:10:37that using stuff like cloud.md,
00:10:40these like system message add-ons
00:10:42that are supposed to enforce particular conventions
00:10:45are actually a net negative and they hurt the AI system.
00:10:49The reason for that is,
00:10:50is oftentimes these conventions don't make sense
00:10:54with how we actually create projects, right?
00:10:58Oftentimes we're doing like the UI in one section
00:11:00and the backend in another section,
00:11:01the authentication in another place,
00:11:02yet it's constantly bringing in all the conventions.
00:11:06All set to say is a lot of people are saying,
00:11:08don't use cloud.md.
00:11:10However, in the context of a personal assistant
00:11:13where our conventions don't have to do with code,
00:11:16they're conventions about how we think
00:11:19and conventions about how I want you
00:11:20to write the markdown files in relation to Obsidian,
00:11:25cloud.md is perfect for that, right?
00:11:27Cloud.md is perfect for that.
00:11:28And one of the ways Obsidian allows us to improve this
00:11:31is because all of these files are already organized.
00:11:35It is really easy to turn this cloud.md file
00:11:39into a living, breathing document.
00:11:41What you see here is a few weeks
00:11:44of essentially using Obsidian and cloud code.
00:11:46I am by no means an Obsidian expert.
00:11:48I've not been using this for months and months and months.
00:11:50However, three months from now, six months from now,
00:11:53nine months from now, or just like a month from now,
00:11:55as I continue to add onto this,
00:11:57one of the great Obsidian and cloud code plays you can do
00:11:59is say, hey, take a look at all our notes,
00:12:02compare it to our cloud.md file.
00:12:05Now make them kind of match and improve the conventions.
00:12:08The idea being that your personal assistant cloud code
00:12:11continues to become closer and closer
00:12:14to this Jarvis type character you want
00:12:18by virtue of having more information about you.
00:12:21And in essence, what we get is we get this brain
00:12:24within a brain, right?
00:12:25This entire vault system is essentially your second brain,
00:12:28right, but this cloud.md is like, you know,
00:12:32whatever you call it, like the full cortex.
00:12:34Like this is the one that's actually making decisions
00:12:36and it's distilled our thinking template into one file.
00:12:41And it can always take a look at the details as needed.
00:12:43And this is the sort of way you should approach
00:12:45the cloud code and Obsidian relationship.
00:12:48Now, how you ultimately leverage all of this
00:12:52into something that is useful for you
00:12:54is obviously up to you.
00:12:56How I've been using this lately
00:12:58is pretty much what you saw from my last video.
00:13:00And if you haven't seen it,
00:13:01it was essentially using cloud code
00:13:04as a research agent on steroids
00:13:05in combination with a YouTube search skill and notebook LM.
00:13:09Well, what do you think I'm doing
00:13:10with all this research information
00:13:11I'm gathering from that workflow?
00:13:13I'm dumping it here into my second brain
00:13:15to continue to turn cloud code
00:13:18into my personal research content assistant I want it to be.
00:13:21And in fact, tomorrow's video, at least that's the plan,
00:13:25is to show you exactly how to do that.
00:13:27And really what you should be thinking about
00:13:29in terms of the use cases is again,
00:13:31like if you actually did have your version of Jarvis,
00:13:33what would it need to know and what would it need to do?
00:13:36And figuring out how to execute that
00:13:39in this Obsidian cloud code ecosystem
00:13:41is where you're gonna make your money.
00:13:42So this is where I'm gonna leave you guys today.
00:13:44I hope this video and this conversation
00:13:47was if nothing else able to sort of shed some light
00:13:50on this relationship between all three,
00:13:52because I think once you understand
00:13:54how they improve one another,
00:13:55you get a good grasp of what Obsidian does
00:13:57and does not buy you.
00:13:59Because I think the waters are still kind of murky
00:14:01for a lot of people.
00:14:02Lastly, as always, hey,
00:14:04if you are trying to learn more about cloud code
00:14:07and you're someone who doesn't come
00:14:07from a technical background or even someone who does,
00:14:10it's essentially trying to supercharge their process
00:14:12of learning how to actually use it in a practical manner,
00:14:14I just released my cloud code masterclass.
00:14:17Inside of the Chase AI+ community,
00:14:19there is a link to that in the comments.
00:14:21So make sure you check that out
00:14:22if you're someone who's serious about this stuff
00:14:24and is looking to eventually make it some sort of career.
00:14:26So make sure to leave some comments
00:14:28and let me know what you thought.
00:14:29Also make sure to go into the description
00:14:31and check out the free Chase AI community.
00:14:33Again, tons of free resources there.
00:14:35If you're just getting started on your AI journey,
00:14:37as always, I'll see you around.