A Folder Replaced My Tech Stack
I've tried ClickUp, Notion, Trello, Asana, Monday, and a half-dozen CRMs. Every single one did too much, charged per seat, and owned my data. In 2023 I moved everything into Obsidian — a local-first markdown editor with no cloud dependency. Two years later, it runs my entire agency.
40+ active clients. Sales pipeline. Proposals. Processes. Finance. Blog strategy. Product specs. Client one-pagers. All of it lives in a single vault on my machine. Backed up to Git. Queryable by AI via Cortex. No subscription. No API rate limits. No vendor lock-in.
This post is the exact file structure I use, why each folder exists, and how I turned it into a deployable product for clients.
Why Obsidian Over Everything Else
The pitch for every SaaS tool is the same: "We'll organize your business." The reality is also the same: you spend more time configuring the tool than doing the work. Then the pricing changes, the API breaks, or they get acquired and sunset your favorite feature.
Obsidian is different because:
- Local-first. Your data is markdown files on your machine. Not in someone else's database.
- No lock-in. Every note is a .md file. Move it anywhere. Read it with anything.
- Wikilinks. Double-bracket links between notes create a knowledge graph. Your notes connect to each other, and those connections become queryable.
- Zero recurring cost. The app is free. Sync is optional. Plugins are community-built.
- AI-compatible. Markdown is what LLMs read best. Your vault is already structured for AI retrieval — you just need something to walk the graph.
The File Structure
Here's the actual folder structure I use. Not a template — the real thing. Every folder earned its place by being used daily, weekly, or monthly. If it wasn't pulling its weight, I archived it.
Araptus Vault /
_CONTEXT.md # One file to give AI full company context
CLAUDE.md # Instructions for Claude Code sessions
Tags Index.md # Tag taxonomy — keeps tagging consistent
Company/ # Mission, model, positioning, site overview
Clients/ # One-pager per client (status, stack, notes)
Sales/ # Pipeline, objection handling, pitch decks
Proposals/ # Drafts, sent, signed — mirrors CRM states
Finance/ # Pricing, invoices, retainers, projections
Processes/ # SOPs, delivery runbooks, checklists
Product/ # Highlander, Doon, Signal, Cortex, Gateway specs
Docs/ # Symlinked app documentation (read-only)
Marketing/ # Content calendar, outreach, campaigns
Blogs/ # Blog strategy, drafts, ideas
SEO/ # Keyword research, ranking tracking
Brand/ # Brand kit, colors, voice guidelines
Security/ # Threat intel, audit reports, incident logs
Research/ # Industry research, competitive analysis
Templates/ # Reusable templates (proposals, reports, briefs)
Notes/ # Inbox — tag and move when stable
Archive/ # Deprecated notes — never delete, just archive
A few things to notice:
- _CONTEXT.md is the most important file. It's a single document that gives any AI tool (Claude Code, Cortex, or a new team member) full company context in one read. Who we are, what we sell, how we work, and where to find everything. Every vault needs this.
- Notes/ is an inbox, not a folder. New thoughts go here. When they're stable, they get tagged and moved to a permanent folder. This prevents the "where does this go?" paralysis.
- Docs/ is symlinked. App documentation lives in the code repos. I symlink it into the vault so I can search it alongside business notes without duplicating files.
- No plugins required. This structure works with zero community plugins. Wikilinks, tags, and folders are all you need.
The _CONTEXT.md Pattern
This is the single most valuable file in the vault. It answers every question an AI (or a human) would ask in the first 5 minutes of looking at your business:
- Who & what — company name, founder, model, client count, core product
- Positioning — the one-line pitch and key differentiators
- What we sell — offerings table with price anchors
- Vault entry points — read-order for full context (this file first, then dashboard, then structure)
- Key files by task — "If you need to do X, go to Y"
- Vault rules — what's read-only, what's an inbox, how tags work
When I open a Claude Code session, the first thing it reads is _CONTEXT.md. Cold start time drops from 10 minutes of explanation to zero. The AI knows who I am, what I'm building, and where to find everything.
Wikilinks Are the Architecture
The folder structure organizes your vault spatially. Wikilinks organize it semantically. When a client note links to a process, and that process links to a template, and that template links to a product spec — you've built a knowledge graph without installing anything.
This is what makes it AI-queryable. Our tool Cortex walks these wikilinks as a graph. Ask Claude about a client's project, and Cortex follows the links from the client note → to the process → to the product spec — delivering structured context at configurable depth.
No embeddings. No vector database. No cloud. Just the connections you already made between your notes.
Turning It Into a Product
After running my business from this vault for two years, the question became obvious: why don't my clients have this?
Most small businesses run on a combination of sticky notes, email threads, Google Docs they can never find, and a CRM they barely use. Their institutional knowledge lives in the founder's head. When they're sick, on vacation, or scaling — that knowledge is unavailable.
So I productized the vault into a Client Business Brain — same structure, adapted for their industry. We deploy it in a single Claude Code session on their machine:
- Vault Core — Company/, Processes/, Templates/, dashboards, _CONTEXT.md
- Blog Module — Blogs/ folder with templates and a /blog skill
- Press Release Module — newswire-format templates and a /press-release skill
- Marketing Module — content calendar, campaign planning
- Finance Module — invoice tracking, pricing summary
- Sales Module — pipeline, pitch materials, objection handling
Each module creates the folders, seeds the templates, and installs Claude Code skills so the client can generate blog posts, press releases, and reports from their own context — using their own business data.
They keep everything. We leave nothing behind except a working system. Their data never leaves their machine.
Principles That Make It Work
- One vault, one truth. Don't split across multiple vaults. One vault with clear folder boundaries beats three vaults you can't cross-reference.
- Inbox → permanent. Notes/ is the inbox. Everything starts there. When it's stable, tag it and move it to the right folder. This prevents decision paralysis on capture.
- Archive, never delete. Old notes aren't trash — they're history. Move deprecated content to Archive/. You'll search it someday.
- Tags in frontmatter. Use YAML frontmatter tags, not inline hashtags. They're queryable, filterable, and machine-readable.
- _CONTEXT.md is non-negotiable. Every vault needs a single file that tells a new reader (human or AI) everything they need to know. Update it monthly.
- Symlink, don't copy. If documentation lives in a code repo, symlink it into the vault. One source of truth, searchable from both contexts.
- Earn your folders. Don't create folders speculatively. A folder earns its place by having 3+ notes in it. Until then, it lives in Notes/.
Getting Started
You don't need to build the whole structure on day one. Start with three folders and one file:
- _CONTEXT.md — Write down who you are, what you do, and what matters. One page.
- Notes/ — Your inbox. Everything goes here first.
- Company/ — Move your mission, positioning, and team info here when it stabilizes.
- Processes/ — The first time you explain how you do something, write it down here. It's now an SOP.
The vault grows with your business. In six months you'll have a system that no SaaS tool can replicate — because it's built from your actual workflows, not someone else's template.
Want Us to Build Yours?
We deploy the Client Business Brain in a single session. Your industry, your workflows, your data — on your machine. You keep everything.
