How I Built a Developer Knowledge Base in Obsidian That I Actually Use
Every developer I know has the same problem: knowledge scattered across five places at once. Browser bookmarks they never re-read. Notion docs that become graveyards. Slack threads with critical context that disappear into the archive. README files that contradict each other. Stack Overflow answers bookmarked with zero recall of why. I tried most of the "second brain" setups and none of them stuck until I figured out why they kept failing: generic productivity systems are not built for how developers actually think and work. A developer's knowledge is fundamentally different from a writer's or a manager's. It is: Code-linked (a note about a library is useless without the actual code it explains) Decision-heavy (architecture decisions need context, rationale, and alternatives considered) Debugging-intensive (solutions to bugs need the exact error message, environment, and what you tried) Time-sensitive (that API migration note is only relevant for a 3-month window) Here is the structure that actually worked. The Core Structure 00-Inbox/ 10-Projects/ 20-Areas/ - Language: Python/ - Stack: AWS/ - Domain: Auth/ 30-Resources/ - Libraries/ - Tools/ - Patterns/ 40-Archive/ The key insight: Resources are evergreen, Projects are temporary, Areas are ongoing responsibilities. A note about how JWT works lives in 30-Resources/Domain-Auth/ . A note about implementing JWT for the current sprint lives in 10-Projects/Sprint-42-Auth-Revamp/ . When the sprint is done, the project gets archived. The JWT fundamentals note stays forever. The Templates That Made It Click Architecture Decision Record (ADR) # ADR-042: Use Postgres over DynamoDB for user sessions Status: Accepted | Date: 2026-06-22 ## Context We need session storage that supports complex queries for the audit log feature. ## Decision Postgres with connection pooling via PgBouncer. ## Alternatives Considered - DynamoDB: rejected (query limitations for audit log requirements) - Redis: rejected (not durable enough for complian