# oldwinter/knowledge-garden: an Obsidian vault published as a working digital garden

> This repository is one person's complete Obsidian vault, published as both source files and a website. It is a reference implementation for wikilinks, plugins and a publishing pipeline, not a template you install and run.

**oldwinter/knowledge-garden** — 我的第二大脑 second brain，我的数字花园 digital garden，用obsidian双链笔记软件写作而成

- Repository: https://github.com/oldwinter/knowledge-garden
- Website: https://oldwinter.top
- Stars: 2,464 · Forks: 137
- Language: TypeScript
- License: MIT
- Published: 2026-09-28 · Updated: 2026-09-28 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/oldwinter-knowledge-garden

## What problem oldwinter/knowledge-garden solves, and for whom

Most advice about linked note-taking arrives as a blog post with three screenshots. oldwinter/knowledge-garden takes the opposite route: it publishes the entire vault, every note, every plugin configuration, every folder. The README describes it as three things at once. It is a snapshot of daily Obsidian use, a second brain shared in full, and a digital garden that keeps the rough edges instead of polishing posts for publication. The README states that about 90% of the notes are written for the author's own future use as evergreen notes, and about 10% are written for readers.

That split matters when you decide whether to spend time here. The intended audience is someone who already writes in Obsidian or is considering it, and who wants to see how a large vault is actually organised rather than how it is described in a tutorial. The README points to an ACCESS note-organisation method and to a usage guide for the vault's configuration, plugins and working ideas. If you are looking for a library to import into your own project, this is not that. It is a corpus and a set of conventions.

## How the vault is structured: folders, wikilinks and a published site

The top-level layout is visible in the repository listing: Atlas/, Calendar/, Cards/, Extras/, Sources/ and Spaces/, plus a garden guide folder and an inbox. This is a folder-based scheme rather than a tag-only one, and the README links an ACCESS method note that explains the reasoning. Notes are connected with wikilink syntax, the double-bracket links that Obsidian and Foam both understand. The README notes that VS Code supports that syntax only after installing the foam extension, which tells you the linking format is the portable part and the editor is interchangeable.

Two artefacts come out of the same source. One is the vault you open locally in Obsidian or VS Code. The other is the website at garden.oldwinter.top, which the README calls the main publishing site. The repository also carries a scripts/ directory and a .obsidian/ directory, so the plugin configuration and the publishing tooling live alongside the notes. The repository's primary language is TypeScript, which points at the scripts rather than at the notes themselves. The README does not describe the publishing pipeline inline; it links a separate publishing guide note for that, so anyone wanting to reproduce the site has to read the vault to find the mechanism.

## Getting the vault running locally

There is no package to install. The README gives two ways to obtain the files: the Use this template button, or Code then Download ZIP from the source repository. After that you open the folder in Obsidian or in VS Code. The template route is the one to prefer if you intend to keep your own copy under version control, because it creates a new repository rather than a detached download.

Once the vault is open, the README's suggested first move is to read the garden guide note, which acts as the map. The path below is the one given in the README, including the emoji in the folder name and the URL-encoded space:

```bash
🍀 花园导览/🍀 花园导览.md
```

Opening that note in Obsidian should show the entry points into the rest of the vault. From there the README suggests following the backlinks panel, which appears at the bottom or on the right of the page, to move between notes instead of browsing folders. If you want the configuration, plugins and working conventions rather than the notes, the README points to a usage guide under the same guide folder:

```bash
🍀 花园导览/🧰 本库指南/🧰 本库使用指南.md
```

Both paths are relative to the vault root. If your editor does not resolve the emoji directory names, that is an editor or filesystem issue rather than a missing file, since the repository listing shows the guide folder at the top level.

## Where this vault is the wrong tool

The README is direct about contribution: it states that this is a personal note vault and that merging other people's notes is not currently possible. So the common instinct to fork it and push your own notes upstream does not apply. Treat it as a read-only reference or as a starting point for a private copy.

A second limitation is that there is no documented release cadence for the vault content itself. The releases listed are v2.0 from 2025-07-11 and v1.0 from 2022-10-13, and the v2.0 notes describe adding material about ChatGPT, Gemini and DeepSeek. That is a snapshot marker, not a versioned product with a changelog you can depend on. If your workflow requires a stable schema for notes, this vault will not provide one.

The third case is the publishing pipeline. The README says the entire output, text, images and site, is open source, and it links a publishing guide, but the README itself does not document the steps, the hosting, or how to roll back a bad publish. Anyone whose goal is to stand up a garden site quickly should expect to read the guide note and the scripts/ directory before they can reproduce the setup. The README is silent on troubleshooting.

## How it differs from a general-purpose static site generator

Tools like Hugo or Jekyll start from content files and a theme, and they expect you to author inside their conventions. This repository starts from an editor. The notes exist first as an Obsidian vault with wikilinks, plugins and a folder scheme, and the site is a second output of the same files. That ordering changes what you get: the vault is fully usable offline and without any build step, and the website is optional.

The cost of that ordering is that the publishing side is bespoke. A static site generator ships documented configuration keys and a plugin ecosystem with versioned releases. Here the equivalent knowledge lives in the vault's own notes and in scripts/, which is a different kind of documentation: readable, but not something you can pin to a version. If you want a pipeline you can upgrade on a schedule, a generator is the safer choice. If you want to see how far an Obsidian vault can go before you need one, this repository is the more informative starting point.

## Licence, maintenance and the cost of keeping a copy

The repository is MIT licensed, which permits reuse and modification provided the licence and copyright notice are kept. That covers the code and the vault files as distributed. It does not settle the status of third-party plugin configuration under .obsidian/, since those plugins carry their own licences, and it does not cover the images hosted on the author's own domain. If you plan to republish content, check those separately. This is a description of what the licence text covers, not legal advice.

On maintenance, the last push to the repository was on 2026-09-27, so the repository is being updated. That says nothing about whether any individual note is current, and the release history shows long gaps between tagged versions. Upgrading a copy you have taken is manual: you pull or re-download, and you reconcile against your own notes, because the README does not describe a merge or migration path. The practical cost is the time to re-read the usage guide whenever plugin configuration changes, not a dependency update you can automate.

## Conclusion

Adopt it if you want a real, complete example of an Obsidian vault with wikilinks, plugins and a web publishing pipeline, or if you want to read someone's notes on PKM. Do not adopt it if you need a maintained software library with an API, or if you expect to merge your own notes into it: the README states this is a personal vault and that contributions of other people's notes are not accepted. Before you build anything on it, open the repository and confirm how the scripts/ directory and the .obsidian/ plugin configuration relate, since the README points to a separate publishing guide rather than documenting the pipeline inline.

## FAQ

### What is oldwinter/knowledge-garden?

It is a personal Obsidian vault published in full, described in the README as a second brain and a digital garden. The same files are published as a website at garden.oldwinter.top and as source in the repository.

### How do I get a copy of oldwinter/knowledge-garden?

The README gives two options: the Use this template button, or Code then Download ZIP from the source repository. You then open the folder in Obsidian or in VS Code, the latter with the foam extension for wikilink support.

### Can I contribute my own notes to oldwinter/knowledge-garden?

No. The README states that this is a personal note vault and that merging other people's notes is not currently accepted. Questions and requests go to GitHub Discussions instead.

### What licence does oldwinter/knowledge-garden use?

The repository is MIT licensed. That covers the distributed code and vault files, but plugin configuration and images hosted on the author's domain may carry their own terms.

### Does oldwinter/knowledge-garden work outside Obsidian?

The README says the vault can be opened in Obsidian or in VS Code, and notes that VS Code needs the foam extension before it supports wikilink syntax. The notes themselves are the portable part.

## Sources

- [License: MIT](https://github.com/oldwinter/knowledge-garden/blob/main/LICENSE)
- [oldwinter/knowledge-garden on GitHub](https://github.com/oldwinter/knowledge-garden)
- [Project website](https://oldwinter.top)
- [README](https://github.com/oldwinter/knowledge-garden/blob/main/README.md)
- [Releases](https://github.com/oldwinter/knowledge-garden/releases)

---

Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/oldwinter-knowledge-garden