Existing Vault Onboarding

Use this path when you already have scenes or a manuscript folder and want to hook them into Radial Timeline.

Common Obsidian Setup Paths

Radial Timeline works well with a few common vault setups. Pick one and stick with it:

• Existing manuscript folder inside a larger vault.
• Multi-book vault with one folder per book plus shared worldbuilding.

This page covers the existing vault flow. If you are starting fresh, see Fresh Vault Onboarding.

1. Add a book profile

1. Decide which folder contains the scene notes for this book.
2. Open Settings -> Core -> Books.
3. Add a book profile, set its title, and link its Source folder to that manuscript folder.

2. Map your metadata

• Your scene notes should use the Scene note type.
• For Radial Timeline View, the main scene note properties are Act, Synopsis, and Subplot.
• Chronologue uses When and Duration.
• Progress uses Status and Publish Stage.
• If your vault uses different property names, use Settings -> Advanced -> Configuration and enable Remap frontmatter field keys.

See Scene Properties (Core + Advanced) for the full schema.

3. Normalize ordering

• Scene order uses the leading number in the scene title.
• Act is scoped; update Act when moving scenes across acts.
• Use Narrative mode drag and drop after each act has at least one scene.

4. Add story beats (optional but recommended)

• Pick a system in Settings -> Core -> Story beats system, or select Custom to define your own.
• For custom systems: name your system, add beats, assign to acts, and drag to reorder.
• Use Create to generate beat set notes, or Merge to realign existing files after changes.
• Switch to Gossamer mode to compare beat-level scoring across the active signal.