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Purpose

Obsidian is the thinking layer of the Ignition Labs OS.
It provides a calm, private workspace for drafting ideas, mapping concepts, and developing early versions of documentation before they are published through Mintlify.
Obsidian helps reduce cognitive load, preserves clarity across projects, and creates a long-term knowledge base that strengthens product and engineering decisions.

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When to use it

Use Obsidian when:
  • You are exploring or drafting ideas.
  • You are writing early versions of specs, internal notes, or product thinking.
  • You need a focused environment for long-form writing.
  • You want to link concepts across products, engineering, and business decisions.
  • You want personal reflection, founder notes, or research logs.
Do not use Obsidian for:
  • Final, published documentation (use Mintlify for that).
  • Team-wide documentation updates that must be version-controlled immediately.
  • Storing files that belong in the repo (diagrams, assets, migrations, code).

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How it fits into Ignition Labs

Obsidian acts as the private upstream stage of the documentation workflow: Draft in Obsidian → Move to /docs → Publish through Mintlify → Link in Linear/GitHub This mirrors how modern product teams work, keeping exploration separate from final, versioned documentation.

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Setup

  1. Install Obsidian from https://obsidian.md.
  2. Open the ignition-labs/docs folder as a vault or create a separate “Ignition Labs OS” vault for drafting.
  3. Install recommended community plugins:
    • Minimal Theme Settings (for visual clarity)
    • Omnisearch (improved search)
    • Dataview (knowledge dashboards)
  4. Set fonts:
    • Interface: System or SF Pro
    • Text: Inter
    • Monospace: Geist Mono
  5. Apply the Minimal theme and configure layout for a calm writing environment.

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Best practices

  • Use lightweight, clear writing that reflects Ignition Labs tone.
  • Keep Obsidian drafts separate from final Mintlify docs.
  • Create backlinks to connect product thinking with engineering decisions.
  • Store early drafts, user flows, and notes before promoting them to /docs.
  • Use Daily Notes to document thinking across seasons and development cycles.
  • Keep only Markdown and text documents; avoid storing large assets in the vault.

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Anti-patterns

  • Do not publish raw Obsidian notes directly to Mintlify.
  • Do not duplicate content across Obsidian and /docs; promote instead.
  • Avoid treating Obsidian as a file storage location.
  • Do not rely on Obsidian alone for team-facing documentation.

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Examples

  • Drafting the Rainy Day weekly checkup flow before turning it into /docs/apps/rainy-day/ui-layout.md.
  • Mapping out Ignition Labs OS principles before writing company/at-a-glance.md.
  • Writing early versions of engineering process changes before updating /engineering/engineering-process.md.