4 Years, 20K Notes, and AI Agents: The Obsidian Starter Kit v4 Is Almost Here
The Obsidian Starter Kit v4 is coming. AI handles the plumbing; you do the thinking. Full AI-enabled Knowledge Management with hundreds of skills, dozens of agents, a CLI, an MCP server, and more. Lock in the current price before it goes up.
Your Obsidian vault probably isn't a solid knowledge system. Here's what one actually looks like.
AI handles the plumbing. You do the thinking.
20,000 notes. 4 years. One vault that runs my life and my business. This is what happens when you take Obsidian seriously, build a real system on top of it, and make the whole thing AI-enabled.
Introduction
I've been looking around for years, and I couldn't find any Obsidian vault as advanced as mine. Over 1,000 people use a 1:1 copy of my system, and the feedback is the reason I keep building and improving the Obsidian Starter Kit (OSK).
"The structure, design and explanations in OSK have finally given me the foundation I needed. 100% worth it."
Michael Aaron, OSK customer
I've seen beautiful themes, cool templates, clever workflows. But most Obsidian vaults are still just Markdown files in folders. No structure. No metadata strategy. No design principles. No automation. Just notes and shiny objects. That's about as good as hitting CTRL+N and calling an empty folder "MyIncredibleSystem."
A good tool isn't enough. You need a real system built on solid foundations. That's what I've spent the last 4 years building; first for myself, then for others.
TL;DR
- The Obsidian Starter Kit is the most advanced ready-made Obsidian vault I know of; 4+ years of continuous development, 20K+ notes in my own vault (proof that it scales), and growing faster than ever
- It includes a clear structure, defined metadata and tags, 40+ templates, automation rules, pre-configured plugins, and a deep user guide covering both theory and practice
- Version 4 is coming within weeks and is a MASSIVE update: full AI integration with hundreds of AI skills, dozens of AI agents, agent memory, LLM Wikis, a CLI, an MCP server, new Obsidian Bases, life tracking support, and much more
- The price will go up after the v4 release. If you buy now, you lock in the current price and get v4 for free
- 1,000+ customers. Overwhelmingly positive feedback. Buy once, get free updates forever
Dwayne Appleby
More Than a Knowledge Base
I now have over 20,000 notes in my vault, and it's growing faster than ever. There are many important things in there. Basically, my entire life is in that vault: my goals, projects, tasks, courses, articles, books, video scripts, inspiration, processes, habits, routines, health/exercise data, books I've read or want to read, book notes, curated content... the list is actually much longer.
And I've never been more convinced that what I've built is truly SOLID. It scales well, it's manageable, it's ordered, it's efficient, it's automated where it makes sense.
It's built on very specific design principles that help keep the system maintainable and efficient at scale. There's a clear structure, clearly defined metadata and tags, 40+ templates, automation rules, pre-configured plugins, a deep user guide covering both the theory and the practice, and a ton more.
This is not "just for fun." This is not a toy. This is a knowledge base I intend to use for a lifetime. And so I build everything in it with that in mind.
But it's actually more than a knowledge base at this point. It's also the command center of my entire media business. I schedule posts from there, explore my analytics, prepare the sales copy of my products, write and publish articles, strategize, plan, prioritize, manage projects, create ads, email sequences, lead magnets, manage my community, etc. The list of things I manage through it is endless.
This vault is where I think, where I work, where I create, where I share everything. By the way, thousands of my notes are publicly available over at notes.dsebastien.net.
What's Coming in v4: Full AI-Powered Knowledge Management
I'm most excited about Version 4. If you're serious about Knowledge Management, this is where things get interesting.
AI handles the plumbing. You do the thinking.
That's the whole point of v4. It makes the Obsidian Starter Kit fully AI-enabled without replacing what makes PKM valuable: YOU, writing, connecting, and deciding what matters. The agents handle the boring parts so you spend your energy where it actually counts. And you augment your thinking with AI, instead of replacing it!
Here's what v4 enables:
- Offload the plumbing: filing notes into the right folder, tagging, cleaning up tags, keeping references and related notes up to date, fixing broken links, updating configurations, maintaining and applying templates, etc. The boring work of a serious vault, automated.
- Extract signal from noise: pull quotes from highlights, surface forgotten notes, spot gaps in your coverage of a topic, flag contradictions between notes you wrote months apart.
- Get past the blank page: build a structured outline from 15 scattered notes on a topic. You still do the writing. You still own the argument. The agent gives you a starting point, not a finished product.
- Run a real research assistant: it searches your vault, assembles what's there, cites its sources, flags what's missing, finds additional sources for you, analyzes those for you, etc. You decide what matters and where to dig deeper.
- Build and maintain LLM Wikis: structured knowledge bases with source tracking and confidence levels, built on material you've already validated.
- Use your vault from the command line and any AI tool: a CLI and an MCP server end the copy-paste-into-AI loop.
- Run your vault like a database: Obsidian Bases and full Typed Markdown Collections Specification (md-base) support describe every note type, property, status, and default. v4 will include a CLI that any AI can use to fully understand the structure and conventions of your vault
- Track your health: Capture data that matters (e.g., sleep, nutrition, exercise, medication, etc) and use AI to connect the dots, prepare meal plans, prepare training programs, etc. Of course it's up to you, but the OSK v4 will make this a breeze to do if you want
AI knows the folders, the metadata, the tags, and how notes connect. It works WITH you, not instead of you.
More to Come
This article is just the overview. Over the coming weeks, I'll publish a series of deeper dives into each part of v4; the AI skills, the agents and panels, agent memory, LLM Wikis, the CLI and MCP server, Obsidian Bases and typed collections, life and health tracking, and more. Each capability deserves its own article, with concrete examples and real use cases. Stay tuned.
This Is NOT an AI Slop Machine
I'm sure you've seen tons and tons of bullshit demos combining AI and Obsidian. Someone hooks Claude Code up to an Obsidian vault, prompts "write me 200 notes on productivity," and shows off the resulting graph online. That vault has Z-E-R-O value. It's an AI landfill, not a knowledge base. Nothing to think with. Nothing to publish from. Nothing that's actually YOURS. Completely meaningless!
The Obsidian Starter Kit v4 is the opposite of that.
It's a thinking space (i.e., a Fourth place), enhanced by AI. Your notes are still the notes you wrote. Your decisions about what matters are still your decisions. The agents handle what's tedious so you spend more time on what's actually hard: deciding what matters, writing the argument, making the connection, choosing what to focus on and what to publish.
That's the difference. And it's the whole point.
Ready now? Grab OSK at the current price. v4 ships in May and is free for existing customers. Keep reading for the full picture.
What This Means For You
Let me be specific about what you actually get when you use this system:
- You skip years of trial and error. I spent 4+ years designing, testing, refining, and rebuilding. You start with a system that already works and has been battle-tested by hundreds of customers
- You get a real structure. Not a blank vault with a few templates. A complete, thought-through organization system with clear rules about where things go and why
- Your notes become useful. Because they're properly structured, tagged, and connected, you can actually find and use your knowledge. That's the whole point
- AI becomes a real thinking partner. Not a chatbot that gives you generic answers. An AI that understands YOUR system, YOUR structure, YOUR way of working, YOU
- You own everything. Local files. Markdown. No vendor lock-in. No subscription to keep your notes accessible. Buy once, use forever
1,000+ Customers Can't All Be Wrong
I've turned the whole system into something other people can use as a starting point and build on top of. It's called the Obsidian Starter Kit. More than 1,000 customers use it today. The name undersells it; the feedback doesn't.
"Obsidian is like an external brain and Sébastien has figured out how to keep that brain organized. I feel such relief each time I figure out a way to organize another interest, project, or goal."
Michael Mindrum, MD
"Day 2 after the purchase of the Starter Kit. I already know that 129.99+ € was really well invested. You made my day; no, my month, and probably my year!"
Thomas Moreau
Don't take my word for any of this. Browse the customer testimonials directly to see what my customers think:
Sébastien Dubois
The Price Is Going Up
The Essentials version currently sells for €199.99. One-time payment. Free updates for life. Given how much is packed into it, and how much is landing in v4, it's underpriced. That's changing.
The price will increase after the v4 release, estimated for May.
v4 is not a minor update. Hundreds of AI skills, dozens of agents, a CLI, an MCP server, Obsidian Bases, full AI integration. The new price will reflect that.
Buy now, lock in the current price, and get v4 for free when it drops. Buy once, benefit forever.
PS: If you think this is too much for a "template", consider that the Obsidian Starter Kit is the result of hundreds of hours of relentless work and dedication. Moreover, it's a system that you CAN use and benefit from for the rest of your life. When you think of it that way, I hope you'll understand that it's actually really cheap. As I mentioned, this is not a toy, and it has the potential to change the way you think, work, and leverage your knowledge.
Going Further
Ready to get started? Here's how:
👉 Get the Obsidian Starter Kit now at the current price before it goes up
Not sure yet? Here are some free resources to explore first:
- My public notes (thousands of notes, free to browse)
- Free Beginner's Guide to Obsidian (50+ pages, free download)
- The design principles behind the vault
- Customer testimonials
You can also get the Obsidian Starter Kit as a bonus by joining the Knowii Community, a place where we explore deeply valuable ideas together.
Sofia
And if you want to stay in the loop, subscribe to my newsletter 🚀
Conclusion
This thing works. I've watched customers rebuild how they think, create, and work around it. That's not a marketing line; that's what they tell me.
The Obsidian Starter Kit is 4+ years of continuous work, 20K+ notes of proof that it scales, and now it's becoming a full AI-enabled Knowledge Management system. There's nothing else like it out there.
The price is going up soon. If you've been on the fence, now is the time. Lock in the current price, and get v4 for free.
That's it for today! ✨
About Sébastien
I'm Sébastien Dubois, and I'm on a mission to help knowledge workers escape information overload. After 20+ years in IT and seeing too many brilliant minds drowning in digital chaos, I've decided to help people build systems that actually work. Through the Knowii Community, my courses, products & services and my Website/Newsletter, I share practical and battle-tested systems.
I write about Knowledge Work, Personal Knowledge Management, Note-taking, Lifelong Learning, Personal Organization, Productivity, and more. I also craft lovely digital products and tools.
If you want to follow my work, then become a member and join our community.
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