It is this thing:
- Block Protocol – an open standard for data-driven blocks
- Progress on the Block Protocol – Joel on Software
- blockprotocol/blockprotocol:
The open-source standard for blocks (github.com)
If the idea takes off, it might be good to see it as a core plugin, but it might be possible to start prototyping as a community plugin.
The promise is to have the common tools to describe things so that they can be nicely presented both to humans and machines and universally supported by different systems.
Since Obsidian is a freeform editor, unlike others like Notion, there is no expectation that blocks will take over. Rather, it might augment the experience as much as special code blocks do already, but in an interoperable standard. Best outcome: less dependence on plugin-specific syntax extensions - more page content is shareable with other Markdown systems. Minimum outcome - still app-specific block syntax, but can benefit from access to the pool of existing block implementations - Blocks hub.
Looks like one of the close plans is to have block protocol supported in GitHub, apparently as an extension for their Markdown. That might be fitting, depending on what exactly they decide to do.
We aim to ensure that blocks developed in accordance with the Block Protocol spec can be used within GitHub markdown READMEs interactively, and elsewhere on GitHub.com . Currently blocks are currently only available for use within GitHub as part of the GitHub Next early release program. We are in the early stages of determining what possible support might look like.
GitHub Next page for Blocks - https://blocks.githubnext.com/
It’s in “Waitlist” status. Not sure if any preview actually accessible yet.
So, it might be a bit early trying to repeat it, but I’m in the mood to share what I just learned about, and hopefully this can serve as an early notice.