Personal repo template

When this fits

One person, one graph. Notes, references, projects, decisions — a working knowledge base for someone whose job is synthesizing across domains (analyst, journalist, investor, researcher, writer) or who just wants a queryable second brain with typed edges.

Signals this fits: the user is both author and consumer. No team roles. No access tiers beyond self. Obsidian-adjacent use case.

Kept deliberately modest. Don't over-engineer a personal repo into a fake team graph.

Collection skeleton

notes/          — atomic ideas, observations, evergreen thoughts
projects/       — in-flight or recently-completed work
references/     — external sources worth referring back to (articles, books, papers)
decisions/      — personal decisions with rationale (career, tools, investments)

Four collections. No /people/ or /clients/ — personal repos don't usually need them as top-level collections; if a person comes up, they get a note.

Edge vocabulary

• cites — a note cites an external reference
• part-of — a note is part of a project
• supersedes — a note or decision supersedes a prior one
• inspired-by — one idea came from another
• contradicts — a note contradicts another (preserve both; don't resolve prematurely)

Keep the vocabulary small. Personal repos drift into edge-type sprawl quickly because every connection feels meaningful; pick five types and stick to them.

Day-one questions

With 50 notes, 5 projects, 20 references, 10 decisions:

• "What am I working on?" → context("/projects") filtered by active status
• "What did I read about X?" → search /references by topic
• "Why did I switch from tool A to tool B?" → context("/decisions/tool-switch-2024")
• "What notes are part of the book project?" → traverse /projects/book for part-of backlinks
• "What ideas did this reading inspire?" → traverse /references/some-book for inspired-by backlinks

Extension hints

• Only add collections when you notice repeatedly asking "where does this go?" A personal repo with 10 collections is a personal repo nobody will maintain.
• Atomicity matters more in personal repos than almost anywhere else. A note that bundles three ideas can't be linked to precisely, and the whole point of a personal KB is precise later-linking.
• Don't add /people/ as a collection unless the person regularly appears as a link target from multiple notes. One-off mentions stay inline; recurring mentions earn their own node once they've recurred several times.
• If the personal repo becomes a client-facing deliverable (rare but possible — some consultants run their PKM as their publication), evolve toward consulting-agency. Don't try to bolt teams onto the personal template.

Example traversal

Question: "What was the original thought that led to my current writing project?"

1. context("/") — see four collections
2. context("/projects/essay-series") — read scope, see inspired-by edge to /notes/tension-between-x-and-y
3. context("/notes/tension-between-x-and-y") — read the note, see cites edges to two references, inspired-by edge to an earlier note
4. context("/notes/earlier-note") — the original thought

Three hops from root to the seed idea of an ongoing project.

design.md starters

• /notes/design.md — each note is one atomic idea. Frontmatter: name (a sentence capturing the idea), description (one-line restatement), date. Body: a paragraph, maybe two. Anti-pattern: notes longer than a page — split them.
• /projects/design.md — each project is a Thing with scope and status. Frontmatter: name, description, status (active/paused/done/abandoned), start-date. Body: what the project is, current state, links to part-of notes.
• /references/design.md — each reference is an external source. Frontmatter: name, description (what this source is about, in your own words), url or citation, date-read. Body: key takeaways in your own words — not a copy of the source.
• /decisions/design.md — personal decision log. Frontmatter: name, description, date, status. Body: what decision, why, what trade-offs. Supersede rather than edit.