Vault layout

Folders are for you to browse, never for search to use. recall, the search command, ignores them entirely, so where a note sits never affects whether you find it. One carve-out: folders starting with _ or . hold control files, and both search and check skip them, so don’t file notes there. That frees the folders to be an honest map of your life instead of a filing system you fight.

The layout

Three kinds of folder, each with a real reason to exist. Entities get one home each and everything links to them. Life-areas hold most of your content, and you pick the set. Forms are split out by how you use them. Hover or tap any row below and it explains itself.

• vault/ everything search sees
• at the root the vault's own bookkeeping: a map, a primer, a timeline, the tag list
• index.md
• hot.md
• log.md
• _tags.md
• entities one home each, everything else links here
• people/

  One note per human you deal with.

  people/<name>.md

  A rename moves the old name into aliases and keeps the file, so nothing that links here breaks.

• orgs/
• holdings/
• life-areas you pick the set, most content lives here
• identity/
• health/
• finances/
• work/
• life/
• projects/
• + your own
• forms split out by how you use them, not by topic
• events/
• mistakes/

entity people/

One note per human you deal with.

people/<name>.md

A rename moves the old name into aliases and keeps the file, so nothing that links here breaks.

How the model files a note

The model makes the call itself, checked top to bottom, and the first match wins.

1. 1

   Is it a person, org, or holding (an owned thing whose state you track)?

   File it in the entity folder, whatever the topic.

   • people/
   • orgs/
   • holdings/
2. no match, keep going
3. 2

   Is it a dated event, a lesson learned, or a project with a status?

   Those have their own folders.

   • events/
   • mistakes/
   • projects/
4. no match, keep going
5. 3

   Otherwise it is topical.

   File it by life-area.

   • identity/
   • health/
   • finances/
   • work/
   • life/
   • + your own

What carries the meaning

The folders are just drawers. The meaning rides in a few short labels at the top of every note, so a note keeps what it means even when it moves. Touch any label below to see what it marks.

vault/finances/german-tax-classes.md

---

type: note

kind: reference

tags: [taxes, germany]

domain: finances mirrors the folder

summary: How the German tax classes pair up one line, written at ingest

---

# German tax classes the H1 is the title

• type in the header what the object is: person, org, holding, project, principle, note, mistake, event
• kind in the header what form it takes: a belief, a model, a policy, a how-to, a rating
• tags in the header what it is about, a list that grows on its own, one idea per tag
• folder in the path where you browse for it, the one axis search never reads

A note in a life-area folder also names its life-area in the header (domain:), and for the shipped set (identity, health, finances, work, life) check complains when the folder and the field disagree. A life-area you add yourself browses and searches like any other, the folder-versus-field check just does not cover it yet.

Tags grow on their own

_tags.md holds your tags and a synonym map, and the list grows with no approval step.

1. 1
   the model tags it

   It picks the best tag that fits, and coins a new one if none does.

2. 2
   check syncs the list

   Every tag your notes use lands in _tags.md, along with the synonym map.

3. 3
   check flags lookalikes you

   Near-duplicate spellings get surfaced for you to merge.

   • finance
   • finances

Coining is automatic, but picking the winning name is a judgment call, so that last step stays yours.

The data is the knowledge

the one rule of filing

Filing adds, it never removes.

recall searches vault/ only, so anything left behind in raw/ (the folder of untouched originals) is invisible to it. The note has to carry the source's real payload in full: tables, lists, IDs, numbers, dates, prices, doses, exact wording. The summary goes on top of that, never in place of it.

the note that loses it

# health insurance

Premiums went up this year.

full table: see the source file

The numbers stayed behind in raw/, where search never looks.

the note that keeps it

# health insurance

Premiums went up this year.

basic	89 → 104 /mo
plus	129 → 151 /mo

The rows ride in the note, so any question about them has an answer.

The test before a note is done: could you answer a specific question from the vault note alone, without opening the original? If the answer is only in raw/, you dropped the knowledge. Put it back.