Quickstart¶
Ten minutes from zero to a working vault with one source ingested and one concept note created. The full onboarding is in 09-onboarding.md; this page is the compressed version.
Prerequisites (2 min)¶
Install:
brew install git python@3.12 obsidiancurl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
Get an API key from your LLM provider — e.g. Anthropic (https://console.anthropic.com) or OpenAI (https://platform.openai.com) — and export the variable it expects:
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-... # Anthropic
# export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-... # ...or OpenAI
echo 'export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc
Clone the engine (1 min)¶
git clone <your-memex-repo> ~/memexcd ~/memexuv sync
Create the vault (1 min)¶
mkdir -p ~/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>/{inbox,raw,wiki,people,companies,philosophies,eras,projects,archive,templates,_qa,_index,_essays,_slides,_charts,_lint,.memex/snapshots}touch ~/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>/.memex/log.jsonlecho "VAULT_PATH=$HOME/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>" > ~/memex/.env
Open the vault in Obsidian: File → Open vault → Open folder as vault, pick ~/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>.
Install the Templater plugin from Settings → Community plugins. Point Templater’s template folder at templates/.
Confirm the engine sees the vault (1 min)¶
cd ~/memexuv run python -m memex doctor --api
Expect doctor_ok. If not, read the error — it’ll tell you exactly what to fix.
Add the two core notes (2 min)¶
Create ~/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>/<your-name>.md:
<div style="text-align:center;color:#94a3b8;letter-spacing:.4em;">• • •</div>title: "<your-name>"type: personacreated: 2026-04-19updated: 2026-04-19status: activetags: []latticework: []<div style="text-align:center;color:#94a3b8;letter-spacing:.4em;">• • •</div># <your-name>Founder / operator in fintech. Building <your-company> and <your-product>. Thinks in termsof five Latticework problems: seeing reality clearly, deciding under uncertainty,allocating time and energy, avoiding self-deception, playing long games.
Create ~/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>/memexlab.md:
<div style="text-align:center;color:#94a3b8;letter-spacing:.4em;">• • •</div>title: "MemexLab"type: manifestcreated: 2026-04-19updated: 2026-04-19status: activetags: []latticework: []<div style="text-align:center;color:#94a3b8;letter-spacing:.4em;">• • •</div># MemexLabA markdown-first second brain. Inbox → raw → wiki → outputs. Filesystem is thedatabase. Engine is additive. LLM compiles; human decides.
Ingest one source (2 min)¶
Find a web article you want to keep. Create ~/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>/raw/2026-04-19-example-source.md:
<div style="text-align:center;color:#94a3b8;letter-spacing:.4em;">• • •</div>title: "<article title>"type: sourcesource_url: <url>publisher: <publisher>publication_date: 2026-04-17ingested: 2026-04-19status: seedtags: [topic/<your-topic>]latticework: [problem-1]<div style="text-align:center;color:#94a3b8;letter-spacing:.4em;">• • •</div>## Original text<paste the article text here>## Reactions- <one sentence>## Related-
Compile it (1 min)¶
uv run python -m memex compile \ ~/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>/raw/2026-04-19-example-source.md
Read the dry-run output. If it looks right:
uv run python -m memex compile \ ~/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>/raw/2026-04-19-example-source.md --apply
New files appear in wiki/. Open one in Obsidian; read it; add two [[links]] to related concepts.
Ask the vault a question¶
uv run python -m memex qa "What did I just learn from the source?"
An answer note lands in _qa/ with slug citations. Open it in Obsidian; follow the links back to the atomic notes.
Schedule the daily linter¶
crontab -e
Add:
0 6 * * * cd ~/memex && uv run python scripts/lint_daily.py \ 2>> ~/Documents/Obsidian/<your-vault>/.memex/log.jsonl
From tomorrow morning, the vault lints itself.
You’re done¶
The loop is live. Capture aggressively; compile weekly; ask questions whenever you want; produce when you have a reason.
Read 04-daily-workflow.md for the day-to-day rhythm, 10-best-practices.md for how to keep the vault compounding, and 11-common-mistakes.md for what to watch out for.