I’ve been testing an agent-only @obsdmd vault in parallel with my Zettelkasten.
My expectation: a faster way to surface sources worth reading.
What I found: it could do so much more than that.
A few findings 👇
1/ It looks like a Zettelkasten
The @karpathy LLM-wiki does what you'd expect — digests sources, chunks them, synthesizes answers.
But the structure mapped almost one-to-one to the Zettelkasten I've been teaching for years. It just does the grunt work automatically.
Maybe more people can get the benefits without the years of system-noodling it usually takes?
There's just one thing missing though...
The @karpathy LLM-wiki does what you'd expect — digests sources, chunks them, synthesizes answers.
But the structure mapped almost one-to-one to the Zettelkasten I've been teaching for years. It just does the grunt work automatically.
Maybe more people can get the benefits without the years of system-noodling it usually takes?
There's just one thing missing though...
2/ No place to see my ideas grow
The system captures everything (synthesis, connections, patterns). But my thinking ends up mixed in with the agent's output.
There's no place where I can see just my ideas, review them, and build on them.
It's all in there somewhere.
Remember that time when you argued with a dead author and won?
Good luck finding it.
The system captures everything (synthesis, connections, patterns). But my thinking ends up mixed in with the agent's output.
There's no place where I can see just my ideas, review them, and build on them.
It's all in there somewhere.
Remember that time when you argued with a dead author and won?
Good luck finding it.
3/ Luhmann solved this 50 years ago.
Thankfully, I didn't have to create anything new. I added what I call the CONVOs layer — a place where only my thinking lives.
I reply to authors. They reply to me. Not a wiki — an async conversation applied to problems I want to solve.
The agent isn't allowed to write here without checking with me first.
Which authors do you want to have a group chat with?
Thankfully, I didn't have to create anything new. I added what I call the CONVOs layer — a place where only my thinking lives.
I reply to authors. They reply to me. Not a wiki — an async conversation applied to problems I want to solve.
The agent isn't allowed to write here without checking with me first.
Which authors do you want to have a group chat with?
4/ Wiki + CONVO = Publish-ready thinking
All the ammo’s there. When an idea hits, examples, stories, and arguments are already in the conversation.
It’s not just a wiki. It’s a writing tool.
All the ammo’s there. When an idea hits, examples, stories, and arguments are already in the conversation.
It’s not just a wiki. It’s a writing tool.
VIDEO
5/ It can evolve with you
The CONVO is the playground. But some ideas stop being experiments.
When an idea becomes something I live by — my niche, my mission — it graduates to Ops.
Ops is the rules the LLM lives by. Whenever it needs context, it knows where to look. I never re-explain myself.
And we continuously evolve together.
Now...
it's not all obsidian butterflies and claud rainbows. There's still a lot of evolving that can happen :)
- Not loving how it uses tags
- It actually doesn't use its own index
- How its search doesn't really scale (echoed by Karpathy himself)
If you're on the fence, just create a new vault and put Karpathy's idea file in. You always learn more when you just give it a try.
Let me know if you have any questions about starting.
The CONVO is the playground. But some ideas stop being experiments.
When an idea becomes something I live by — my niche, my mission — it graduates to Ops.
Ops is the rules the LLM lives by. Whenever it needs context, it knows where to look. I never re-explain myself.
And we continuously evolve together.
Now...
it's not all obsidian butterflies and claud rainbows. There's still a lot of evolving that can happen :)
- Not loving how it uses tags
- It actually doesn't use its own index
- How its search doesn't really scale (echoed by Karpathy himself)
If you're on the fence, just create a new vault and put Karpathy's idea file in. You always learn more when you just give it a try.
Let me know if you have any questions about starting.
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