refactoringhq/portent-vault-template

This repository is a starter pack for a personal knowledge system called Portent. It is not a piece of software with code to run. It is a folder of Markdown files that a person copies into their own note-taking app and uses as the seed of their notes vault. The word vault here is the term used by tools like Obsidian and the README's mentioned tool, Tolaria, to mean a folder of Markdown notes that link to each other. Portent itself is described as an opinionated knowledge model. The opinion is that everything a person tracks should fit into one of eight object types: project, operation, responsibility, task, event, note, topic, and person. The template provides one Markdown file for each of those types, written in a way that local-first apps can read directly and use as type definitions. There is also a small lifecycle that every item passes through: first it is captured, which makes it available; then it is organized, which means giving it a type and relationships so it becomes actionable; then it is archived when it should no longer appear in active views. So a Portent vault is not just a pile of notes, it is notes that move through these three states. To link notes together, Portent suggests two relationship fields in the YAML front matter at the top of each file. The first is belongs_to, used for strong ownership where one thing is part of another, for example an event that belongs to a particular project. The second is related_to, used for weaker, many-to-many connections such as topics or other notes that are merely about the same subject. The README shows a short example where an Event note belongs to a launch project and is related to two topic notes. The README is short and points the reader to a longer write-up called introducing-portent for the full description. There is no installation step beyond placing these files in a notes app that understands wikilinks and YAML front matter, since the template's value is the structure itself rather than any executable behavior.