Most writing about AI + Obsidian focuses on using AI to generate notes, summarize content, or search your vault. This is about the inverse: structuring the vault so it reliably orients an AI at the start of every session — without relying on the AI’s memory, which doesn’t persist, or your own working memory, which is unreliable.
**The core design move**
AI sessions are stateless. Each one starts fresh. If your vault is just a collection of notes with no orientation layer, every session begins with either a long briefing or a lot of wrong assumptions. The fix is to treat AI sessions as stateless workers and the vault as the persistent state layer.
**What that looks like in practice**
Three components make it work:
*Context files* — each active project or domain has a dedicated file in a `Working Context/` folder. These capture current state, open items, files in scope, and relevant cross-references. They’re written to be read by an AI at session start, not just by a human browsing the vault.
*Session start protocol* — at the start of every vault session, two files are read before anything else: a vault-level navigation file and a canonical action register. A third read is triggered if the session has a domain focus. This is encoded as a repeatable protocol, not left to inference.
*Handoff protocol* — at session close, a structured prompt is generated and written to a dedicated file in the vault root. The next session opens with this, bridging the gap. Format: what was completed, what needs human review in Obsidian, what was deferred, what comes next.
**Why this gets thorough**
I built this under real constraints — ADHD, unreliable working memory, no margin for gaps in the system. When working memory can’t cover for a missing piece, the missing piece gets filled. That maps directly onto evidence-based ADHD management: reduce working memory load by moving cognitive cargo into external systems. The vault does that for project state; the session protocol does that for session continuity.
I use Claude, and the session start protocol is encoded as a reusable skill so it runs consistently across sessions without relying on the AI to infer what to do.
**What I’m curious about**
Has anyone else approached vault design from this angle — building explicitly for AI orientation rather than just human navigation? The Promptfire plugin addresses a related problem (copying context to your clipboard before a session), but I’m interested in whether people are thinking about the structural design level, not just the tooling level.
Happy to share more detail on any of the components.
