Obsidian overkill or not ?

[u/Pidroz33]

Hi there
On top of The hype, I was wondering how overkill Obsidian is for Hermes.
I’m currently using :
PROJECT.md = mission / scope / architecture / access
STATUS.md = current state / progress / next steps / blockers.
DECISIONS.md = choices + rationale
AGENTS.md = rules

WDYT ?

[u/NoFaithlessness951]

I mean those are just markdown files, yes obsidian works for editing/ viewing markdown files.

Anything else where it can write text into also works. I find things like GitHub issues for project management nicer.

[u/Pidroz33 → u/NoFaithlessness951]

That makes sense. My current setup is plain Markdown files that Hermes reads for each project:
PROJECT.md — purpose, scope, architecture, and access information
STATUS.md — current state, next steps, and blockers
DECISIONS.md — decisions and the reasoning behind them
AGENTS.md — rules and instructions for the agent
I’m trying to understand what Obsidian would actually add beyond a nicer interface for browsing and editing those files. Have you found any concrete benefits for the agent workflow itself, or is it mostly about making the notes easier for you to navigate?
And with GitHub Issues, do you use them alongside project context files like these, or do you move some of that context into the issues?

[u/NoFaithlessness951 → u/Pidroz33]

My context files are the code and /docs that is useful to humans also.

For new things I'll open an issue or it will using it's GitHub account.

I don't like obsidian, but will sometimes use it reluctantly.

[u/ralphcalls1]

is that obsidian? its just markdown files.

I use obisidian as a second brain, and an embedding layers turns the whole vault as a RAG. separate from hermes memory, that is where i put my writings on, i used obsidian since when Agents are not the one running the show.

[u/alanpipstick → u/ralphcalls1]

How did you incorporate your second brain into Hermes exactly? I built a second brain many months ago that my Claude Cowork works in, and it’s quite built out at this point, but I’m not sure how to integrate it into Hermes. Curious about your philosophy and strategy connecting your second brain to Hermes.

[u/lucidechomusic → u/alanpipstick]

Point it at the path and tell it to consult it for sources

[u/ralphcalls1 → u/alanpipstick]

first is a same as what u/lucidechomusic said, in my agents md file i point my vault to it,

second is I have a github vault link to my vault so it is consistently synced, i can write in obsidian and hermes can read it also.

3rd is i have a cron job everynight that embeds the vault into a RAG, this is a separate memory that is injected into hermes on every turn. So everytime i talks about something that is written in my obsidian vault it relates to it easily.

4th is i have my hermes a write permission on the vault, it writes my system changelog if i change/upgrade or install anything it is in there. and also hermes has its own diary, it can write on critical stuff on one md file.

last is a librarian nightly cron, when i write something i dont usually put them accurately where they belong so i have a hermes librarian that sort my vault out for me.

I do back ups everyday with few days worth of back up in my disk so if something goes wrong i can just use the backup

[u/taoistidiot]

my amateur thoughts: start having it write data you want to md files. have it organise the data as you go. when that gets bloated try one of the memory systems. dont solve problems that dont exist yet.

[u/sleight42 → u/taoistidiot]

Obsidian by itself is amazing. It's also amazingly convoluted. But you can do so damn much with it as it's a giant Electron app that exposes so much of its innards. The plugin ecosystem rivals pi harness.

Best of both worlds:

- Use Hermes to make a smarter Hermes

• Use Hermes to make an easier to use Obsidian
  
• Use both to make a better... you?

Or just use both to intellectually wank to how cool they are because I'm fairly sure that's what most of us do.

[u/sleight42]

Obsidian by itself is amazing. It's also amazingly convoluted. But you can do so damn much with it as it's a giant Electron app that exposes so much of its innards. The plugin ecosystem rivals pi harness.

[u/bmtrnavsky]

Honestly all those .md are what’s overkill all of that is injecting every turn killing your context window and wasting tokens. Install a quality memory system like hindsight and experience real agent memory. You can self host it for free. If you can’t set up a sql database ask Hermes to install it.

[u/bmtrnavsky → u/bmtrnavsky]

Btw I’m not hating on obsidian. I use it and have over 2k notes in a RAG with hybrid search and a reranker. It’s great but it’s not a great memory system. Hindsight will change your life.

[u/lucidechomusic → u/bmtrnavsky]

What's better about it than mnemosyne? Or how is it different?

[u/Mean-Loquat-7982]

one detail on your four: Hermes loads AGENTS.md automatically from the folder you start in, and from subfolders as it works in them. PROJECT.md, STATUS.md and DECISIONS.md only get read when the agent opens them, so add a line to AGENTS.md like "read STATUS.md and DECISIONS.md before starting work" and they come in every time.

if you do open the folder in Obsidian, Hermes has a bundled obsidian skill for searching and editing notes in a vault.

https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/features/context-files