vaultbase

An editor built for connected thinking

Rich markdown with wikilinks, backlinks, transclusion, and inline AI — all running locally on plain files. No account needed, works offline, compatible with your Obsidian vault.

VaultBase — engineering / architecture.md ● Synced
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tags: [architecture, public]
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System Architecture

Our platform follows a microservices pattern. See [[deploy-runbook]] for ops details and [[api-gateway]] for routing.

AI 3 key concepts extracted
  • Event-driven architecture with Kafka backbone
  • Auth service is the single trust boundary
  • All inter-service communication is gRPC

![[service-diagram]] ← transclusion

How it works

Wikilinks, backlinks, and graph view

Type [[page-name]] to link any note to any other note. VaultBase automatically indexes these links and shows a backlinks panel on every page — no manual effort required. The graph view renders your entire vault as an interactive node map, filterable by tag, folder, or search query. Orphan notes (no inbound or outbound links) are highlighted so nothing gets lost.

Links resolve across folders, so [[deploy-runbook]] works from anywhere in the vault. Ambiguous matches prompt you to disambiguate.

Inline AI completions and actions

Highlight text and invoke AI actions: summarize, extract key concepts, generate questions, or continue writing. Completions appear inline — accept with Tab, dismiss with Escape. Bring your own API key (OpenAI, Anthropic, or local models via Ollama) or use VaultBase AI on cloud plans.

AI actions are context-aware. They see backlinks and transclusions, so summaries account for connected documents, not just the current file.

Daily notes, templates, and quick capture

Press Ctrl+D to open today's daily note, created from your template if it doesn't exist yet. Templates support variables like {{date}}, {{title}}, and {{tags}}. Quick capture (Ctrl+Shift+N) opens a scratch note in your inbox folder — triage later, capture now.

Transclusion and tag management

Embed one note inside another with ![[page-name]]. The transcluded content renders inline and stays up to date — edit the source, and every embed reflects the change. Use this for shared definitions, boilerplate, or reusable decision criteria.

Tags live in YAML frontmatter. The tag panel shows all tags in your vault with counts, and bulk rename propagates across every file. Tags also drive tag-level permissions, so adding a tag can change who sees a file.

Why it matters

No lock-in

Your vault is plain markdown on disk. Open it in Obsidian, VS Code, or vim. No proprietary format, no export step, no migration headache.

Works without internet

The editor is a local-first application. Every feature works offline. Sync resumes automatically when you reconnect — nothing is lost.

Keyboard-driven

Command palette, fuzzy file search, vim-style navigation optional. Dark and light themes. Designed for people who type all day.

Obsidian compatible

Point VaultBase at an existing Obsidian vault. Wikilinks, tags, and frontmatter work the same way. Add sync and permissions without changing your workflow.

Related features

Download VaultBase

Free. Works offline. No account needed.

Open source. AGPL-3.0. Plain markdown files. Export anytime.