New Obsidian Vault Setup and Plugins // Erik Horton

New Obsidian Vault

You just created a new obsidian Vault. Now what? This is not something you should be doing too often, as I think it’s best to just maintain 1 vault. However, you may be installing the same vault on multiple computers, and not syncing the .obsidian folder. Or you may be setting up different settings for work and personal.

Install Plugins

These are the plugins I install on every new Vault. Install, then enable them.

Installed and Enabled

Advanced Codeblock obsidian / github
Advanced Slides obsidian / github
Advanced Tables obsidian / github
Advanced URI obsidian / github
Automatically reveal active file obsidian / github
Calendar obsidian / github
Chronology obsidian / github
Dataview obsidian / github
Dictionary obsidian / github
Git obsidian / github
Homepage obsidian / github
MetaEdit obsidian / github
Mind Map obsidian / github
QuickAdd obsidian / github
Reading Time obsidian / github
Recent Files obsidian / github
Table of Contents obsidian / github
Tasks obsidian / github
Tracker obsidian / github

Installed and Disabled

Why? I’m still figuring out if I’ll use them, but want to remember it’s there.

Templater obsidian / github

Plugins

Now my .obsidian/community-plugins.json looks like:

[
  "calendar",
  "table-editor-obsidian",
  "obsidian-advanced-uri",
  "dataview",
  "obsidian-dictionary-plugin",
  "metaedit",
  "quickadd",
  "obsidian-reading-time",
  "recent-files-obsidian",
  "obsidian-plugin-toc",
  "obsidian-git",
  "obsidian-mind-map",
  "obsidian-reveal-active-file",
  "obsidian-tracker",
  "homepage",
  "obsidian-advanced-slides",
  "obsidian-advanced-codeblock",
  "chronology",
  "obsidian-tasks-plugin"
]

Configure Options and Plugins

(Core) Daily notes should use YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD for the Date format, Daily for the New file location, and Templates/Daily Note Template for the Template file location.
(Options) Hotkeys - “Homepage: Open homepage” should map to cmd + H

Define folder structure

I use my vault to learn new things and try to be a better person. I found the best way to organize my vault is around skills and technologies I want to know more about.

Daily/
    2024/
        12/
            ...
Hard Skills/
Soft Skills/
Projects/
Templates/
    Daily Note Template.md
Home.md
Scratch.md
.gitignore

If I learn something new about Python, or AWS, or Kubernetes, it goes under the relevant page in Hard Skills.
If I learn about a productivity technique / mindset / communication framework / leadership technique, it goes under the relevant page in Soft Skills.
Anything else just falls under “Projects”. Keeping track of my health, or trips, or family all go under Projects.
Daily notes automatically get created under Daily and the relevant YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD.md page
In my .gitignore, I include .obsidian, .DS_Store, and my Work/Daily directories if I’m sharing my personal vault with a work computer.

Configure Daily Note Template

I’m still experimenting with the fields I want the most often, but here’s how it looks today:

---
tags:
  - daily
---

## Log
-

## Urgent & Important
- [ ]

## Tasks Unfinished
```tasks
not done
```

## Scratch

Configure appearance

Here, I’ll adjust the GUI to fit what I want to see.

On the right sidebar, I separate it into 4 sections by dragging the icons I want moved to the bottom half of the new section.

Section 1 (top): Calendar, Chronology (default)
Section 2 (mid-top): Outline (default), Tags
Section 3 (mid-bottom): Backlinks
Section 4 (bottom): Outgoing links

It’ll look something like this:

Setup

Configure Home page

Here, I’ll adjust my settings so Home.md loads a home page with statistics, recent pages, and other trackers/graphs.

CSS

To configure these, navigate to Settings -> Appearance -> CSS snippets (at bottom).

CSS

.obsidian/appearance.json

{
  "accentColor": "",
  "enabledCssSnippets": [
    "dashboard",
    "dashboard-ReadLineLength"
  ]
}

.obsidian/snippets/dashboard.css

.dashboard {
    font-family: inherit;
    padding-left: 25px !important;
    padding-right: 25px !important;
    padding-top: 20px !important;
}

.dashboard .markdown-preview-section {
    max-width: 100%;
}

/* Title at top of the document */
.dashboard .markdown-preview-section .title {
    top: 60px;
    position: absolute;
    font-size: 26pt !important;
    font-weight: bolder;
    letter-spacing: 8px;
}

.dashboard h1 {
    border-bottom-style: dotted !important;
    border-width: 1px !important;
    padding-bottom: 3px !important;
}


/* Get rid of the parent bullet */
.dashboard div.markdown-preview-section > div > ul > li > div.list-bullet {
    display: none !important;
}

/* Remove the indentation guide lines */
.dashboard.markdown-rendered.show-indentation-guide li > ul::before,
.dashboard.markdown-rendered.show-indentation-guide li > ol::before {
  display: none;
}

div.markdown-preview-section > div > ul.has-list-bullet > li {
    padding-left: 0p !important;
}

.dashboard div > ul {
    list-style: none;
    display: flex;
    column-gap: 50px;
    flex-flow: row wrap;
}

.dashboard div > ul > li {
    min-width: 250px;
    width: 15%;
}

/* Dataview support */
.dashboard ul.dataview {
    row-gap: 0px !important;
    list-style-type: disc !important;
}

.obsidian/snippets/dashboard-ReadLineLength.css

/*If "Readable line length" is enabled in Editor*/
.dashboard.markdown-preview-view.is-readable-line-width .markdown-preview-section,
.dashboard.markdown-preview-view.is-readable-line-width .markdown-preview-section > div {
   width: 100% !important;
   max-width: 100% !important;
 }

home.md

At the top, apply the css class of “dashboard”, which should map to the snippets/dashboard.css file.

Properties

Example Home.md:

[YouTube: Create a Dashboard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AatZl1Z_n-g)
[Youtube: Tracker plugin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_leEJHBZW4)

# Dashboard
- ✏️ Recent file updates
 `$=dv.list(dv.pages('').sort(f=>f.file.mtime.ts,"desc").limit(10).file.link)`
- ☑️ TODOs
 `$=dv.list(dv.pages('#todo').sort(f=>f.file.name,"desc").limit(10).file.link)`
- 〽️ Stats
	- Total Pages: `$=dv.pages().length`

- 📅 2024
	- Q1 Ends: `= date("2025-04-01") - date(today)`
	- Q2 Ends: `= date("2025-07-01") - date(today)`
	- Q3 Ends: `= date("2025-10-01") - date(today)`
	- Q4 Ends: `= date("2025-01-01") - date(today)`
- 🏷️ Tags to use
	- `idea`
	- `1on1`
	- `positive`
	- `negative`
	- `improvement`
	- `question`

## Trackers

Daily Notes
```tracker
searchType: tag
searchTarget: daily
datasetName: Daily
folder: Daily
month:
	mode: annotation
	annotation: ✅
	startWeekOn: 'Sun'
	color: steelblue
```

```tracker
searchType: tag
searchTarget: daily
folder: Daily
datasetName: Daily Notes
startDate: 2023-01-01
summary:
    template: "Longest Streak: {{maxStreak()}} day(s)\nLongest Breaks: {{maxBreaks()}} day(s)\nLast streak: {{currentStreak()}} day(s)"
```

## Books

```query
📚
```

## Retrospective

```query
tag:1on1
```
```query
tag:positive
```
```query
tag:negative
```
```query
tag:question
```
```query
tag:idea
```

Usage patterns

These are the patterns I use most often when navigating the vault.

cmd + o to create or open a new page
cmd + h to return to home page, then cmd + e to switch between editing and viewing
Commit and save changes to private git repo with: cmd + p -> commit all changes then cmd + p -> push
Tag sections with 📚 if I want them to appear under the books section
Tag sections with #1on1, #positive, #negative, #question, #idea. Review these on 1on1s and retrospectives.
When I find a good link to a website/video for a given technology, I add it under the “Resources” heading on the relevant page.
To work on a slideshow, make a Slideshows/Some Slideshow.md file. Separate pages with ---, and develop each page with standard markdown. Use cmd + shift + e to load the preview.

Erik Horton

💼 Projects ⋅ 🎓 TIL

⚡ Tags

New Obsidian Vault Setup and Plugins