A free, Obsidian-only claim ledger for research notes

Share & showcase Workflows & Templates
1

Disclaimer

Is this project open source? Yes. The Markdown templates in this post are
released under the MIT License.

Is this project completely free? Yes.

Is this project made with AI beyond the author’s ability to comprehend how it
works? No.

A free, Obsidian-only claim ledger for research notes

This workflow uses only Obsidian’s built-in Markdown notes, Properties,
Templates, Search, and internal links. It requires no paid service, community
plugin, AI service, account, or external website.

The goal is simple: keep a material claim marked unverified until you open its
source and check the exact page or section yourself.

Folder layout

Create these folders in your vault:

Research/
├── Claims/
├── Sources/
├── Templates/
└── Claim dashboard.md

Claim template

Enable the Templates core plugin. Set its template folder location to
Research/Templates, create Research/Templates/Claim.md, and paste this into
the file in Source mode:

---
type: claim
status: unverified
source:
location:
reviewed: false
---


# {{title}}

## Claim

Write one material claim here.

## Evidence

- Source note: [[Research/Sources/Source name]]
- Exact page or section:
- What the source actually supports:

## Open questions

- [ ]

To use it, create a note in Research/Claims, open the Command palette, run
Templates: Insert template, and choose Claim.

For example, a completed claim might contain:

---
type: claim
status: verified
source: "[[Research/Sources/Example paper]]"
location: "p. 14, Results"
reviewed: true
---

verified means you personally opened the source and checked that location. A
search snippet, abstract, secondary citation, or generated summary is not
verification.

Dashboard for unfinished claims

Paste this into Research/Claim dashboard.md:

## Claims still requiring source review

```query
path:"Research/Claims" [status:unverified]
```

Obsidian’s built-in Search renders the matching notes. You can also paste
path:"Research/Claims" [status:unverified] directly into the Search sidebar.

Daily workflow

  1. Create one claim note for each material statement.
  2. Link it to a source note and record an exact page or section.
  3. Keep status: unverified and reviewed: false while checking it.
  4. Change both properties only after the source supports the claim.
  5. Open the dashboard before drafting and resolve every remaining result.

The workflow is done when the dashboard returns no unverified material claims,
every verified note has an exact location, and conflicting evidence remains
visible rather than being silently discarded.

I will keep future updates to this workflow in this thread, as requested by the
Share & Showcase rules.