type	description
meta	Overview of the Data Relay vault — its purpose, structure, and conventions.

The Data Relay

A shared Obsidian vault — a knowledge base with structured read/write access for both March and Claude via Claude Code.

How It Works

The vault supports two modes of interaction:

• Read: Reference notes — codex entries, maps, project docs — for richer context when collaborating on work and creative tasks.
• Write: Contribute notes (research findings, drafted decisions, summaries) into staging areas (chassis/knowledge/inbox/, [[garden]]) for review before promotion.

Structure

The vault organizes content into six top-level buckets:

• chassis/ — Content common to all context domain vaults.

  • chassis/tracking/ — Work hierarchy: missions/, operations/, projects/, quests/. Each entry is its own note with frontmatter metadata.
  • chassis/knowledge/ — Knowledge pipeline: codex/, inbox/, notes/, evergreens/, maps/.

• local/ — Domain-specific content unique to this vault.

  • local/docs/, local/impls/, local/presentations/, local/snippets/, local/resources/, local/insights/.

• periodics/ — Recurring/time-based content (chassis — available in all domains).

  • periodics/dailies/ — Daily session notes, one per day, accumulating session summaries.

• meta/ — Vault infrastructure: meta/templates/, meta/configs/, meta/scripts/, meta/outputs/.

• bases/ — Obsidian Base views for querying vault data.

• skills/ — Domain-specific skills (relay-specific).

• logs/ — Audit logs.

• Root flat files for bounded, append-only types: [[TODO]], [[garden]], [[commentary]], [[tools]], [[tags]].

Linking

Notes should use [[wikilinks]] to connect to related notes. Link to notes that already exist in the vault, and also to notes that don't yet exist but would be useful as standalone entries on a related topic. Obsidian renders unresolved links distinctly, making them a natural way to surface gaps in the knowledge base and signal what's worth writing next.

References to directories use backtick code spans (chassis/knowledge/codex/, local/docs/, etc.) — directories are not notes and should not be wikilinked.

Tracking notes (missions, operations, projects, quests) are individual files — link to them directly with [[Project Marchhouse - toy ClickHouse implementation|Project Marchhouse]]. Tracking notes use embedded ```base code blocks with file.hasLink(this.file) to auto-generate lists of child entries and related notes. This means cross-reference lists are never manually maintained — when a knowledge note links to a project, it automatically appears in the project's "Related notes" base view.

Diagrams

Use Mermaid diagrams in fenced ```mermaid code blocks to visualize flows, lifecycles, hierarchies, and system relationships. Obsidian renders these natively in reading view. Diagrams complement prose — use them when structure is easier to see than to read.

Boundary with the Datastore

March maintains a separate personal vault — the datastore — which holds the full graph of his knowledge and personal notes. The Data Relay is a projection of that graph onto the surface area where collaboration actually happens.

This boundary exists because shared context has a cost. Every note here is something that might be read, referenced, or reasoned about. Content that informs March's thinking but isn't relevant to active collaboration (journals, inspirations, curricula, etc.) stays in the datastore to keep the signal clean.

The boundary is a living decision, not a one-time partition. Notes that start as personal context may become collaboration-relevant as projects evolve, and notes here may lose relevance over time. Periodically revisit what's in the Data Relay — promote datastore notes into it when they become useful to shared work, and archive or remove notes that have gone stale.

Skills

The vault is exposed to Claude Code through two types of skills, all symlinked to ~/.claude/skills/ for global access.

Chassis skills (domain-*)

Domain-agnostic skills that work with any domain vault. They accept the active domain name as their first argument and resolve the vault path from ~/.claude/domains.json. Defined in dotfiles (~/configs/minimal/robots/skills/).

Auto-invocable (Claude can use these proactively):

• /domain-context — Orient on current missions, projects, operations, and quests.
• /domain-lookup — Search the vault for notes on a topic.
• /domain-comment — Add an observation, opinion, or idea to [[commentary]].
• /domain-codex — Write a new codex entry to chassis/knowledge/codex/.
• /domain-note — Write a new draft note to chassis/knowledge/inbox/.
• /domain-garden — Append an idea to [[garden]].
• /domain-tracker — Show status of missions, operations, projects, and quests. Pass a type name to drill in, or no argument for an overview.

Manual only (March invokes explicitly):

• /domain-focus — Anchor the session to a quest.
• /domain-quest — Create or update a quest in chassis/tracking/quests/.
• /domain-reflect — Reflect on session work and propose learnings to codify.
• /domain-review — Surface all notes pending review (tagged inbox).
• /domain-todo — Add a task to [[TODO]].

Domain-specific skills (relay-*)

Skills unique to the Data Relay, handling artifacts or workflows that don't generalize across domains. Defined in skills/.

• /relay-snippet — Save a code snippet to local/snippets/.
• /relay-doc — Save an implementation document to local/docs/. Requires March's approval before writing.
• /relay-doc-list — List saved implementation documents.
• /relay-doc-search — Search local/docs/ for documents relevant to current work.
• /relay-impl — Save an implementation plan to local/impls/. Requires March's approval before writing.
• /relay-presentation — Create a new presentation or work on an existing one in local/presentations/. Requires March's approval before writing.
• /relay-record — Record a session summary in periodics/dailies/. Creates or appends to today's daily note.