DeveloPassion's Newsletter 203 - The Power of Feedback
A newsletter discussing AI, Knowledge Work, Knowledge Management Systems, Zen Productivity, Personal Organization, and everything in between!
Hello everyone! I'm Sébastien Dubois, your host. You're receiving this email because you signed up for DeveloPassion's Newsletter. Thank you for being here with me ✨
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Welcome
Welcome to all the new readers ❤️
Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩
On the personal front, things have been... interesting. I broke a tooth a two weeks ago, and it's been quite painful. Thankfully, the third dentist appointment is coming soon. But this forced me to cancel upcoming Knowii Community events. Hard to speak at the moment :p
I also still can't run because I'm too scared of hurting myself further. The waiting game continues!
Beyond that, I've had TONS of fun building different things these past weeks. More on that below!
Alright, let's gooooo 🚀
This Week's Highlights
- Launched the Life Tracker plugin for Obsidian — Tracking what matters in your life has never been easier 🎉
- Built the WhatsApp Claude Agent CLI — control Claude Code from your phone
- Created the Ghost Visibility CLI tool
- Deployed my new Tools Website: https://tools.dsebastien.net
- Reached $3.5K sales this month 💪
- Knowledge Management for Beginners crossed 200+ students
- Published multiple articles on PKM and Obsidian
- Finished reading The Running Man (book) and The Long Walk (book) by Stephen King
- Started reading The Mist (book)
Before You Go Any Further
I want to reach more people. Got 20 seconds? Then share the link with one friend/colleague who would benefit from joining us! And of course, don't forget to also mention the Knowii Community ❤️
And if you bought some of my products or courses? Then please leave a rating/review. It really helps a lot ❤️
Knowii Affiliate Program Reminder
Want to help spread the word about my products while earning money? Join the Knowii Affiliate Program!
It's a mission-driven partnership for content creators, PKM practitioners, and community members who want to help others break free from information overload while earning 40% commissions on all my products.
That includes:
- Knowii Community memberships
- Obsidian Starter Kit
- Knowledge Management for Beginners course
- Knowledge Worker Kit
- Knowii Voice AI
- And everything else in my store
It's free to join. If you believe in what I'm building and want to support my work, this is a great way to do it ❤️
Join here: https://www.dsebastien.net/knowii-affiliate-program/
The Power of Feedback
This edition's theme came from a surprising experience: the overwhelming positive response to my little plugin idea.
A few days ago, I started building the Life Tracker plugin for Obsidian. I needed it for myself to better track health-related information and visualize patterns over time. I shared it on Reddit, expecting maybe a handful of responses.
What happened instead? 40,000+ views. ~200 likes. 90 GitHub stars in just a few days. I was really taken aback.
But the numbers aren't what matters most. What truly excited me was the feedback.
People started suggesting features. Reporting bugs. Asking questions. Sharing how they wanted to use it. And this feedback loop quickly became incredibly powerful. I was able to iterate rapidly, shipping multiple releases based on real user needs.
Since the initial announcement, I've released versions 1.2 through 2.0 with features like:
- Batch mode for capturing multiple data points at once
- Mobile-optimized data entry
- Formula visualizations
- Property reordering
- Customizable heatmaps
- Customizable color schemes
- Timeframe customization
- And much more
This is the magic of building in public. You share something. You get feedback. You improve. You share again. The cycle continues, and the product gets better exponentially faster than if you were building alone.
And with AI, you can build things at breakneck speed.
If you're sitting on an idea, waiting for it to be "perfect" — stop. Ship it. Get feedback. Iterate. That's how real progress happens.
Tracking Life Systematically
Let me tell you more about the Life Tracker plugin for Obsidian.
I built it because I needed a better way to track important health-related information in Obsidian. Things like sleep quality, energy levels, mood, exercise, medications, symptoms — all the data points that help you understand patterns in your life.
In Obsidian Starter Kit v3, I added tons of properties to daily notes, but had a hard time updating those. Now my problem is fixed:

Existing solutions either required complex setups, didn't integrate well with Obsidian's native features, or lacked proper visualization capabilities. I wanted something that:
- Works seamlessly with Obsidian and Obsidian Bases
- Makes data entry quick and frictionless
- Provides beautiful visualizations (charts, heatmaps, timelines)
- Supports any type of property you want to track
- Works on both desktop and mobile
So I built it.
Key Features:
- Multiple visualization types: line charts, bar charts, pie charts, heatmaps, timelines
- Batch mode for capturing multiple metrics at once
- Mobile-responsive design
- Formula support for calculated properties
- Customizable colors and timeframes
- Property duplication and reordering
- Grid and card layouts
Links:
- Article: https://www.dsebastien.net/announcing-life-tracker-a-new-obsidian-plugin/
- GitHub: https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-life-tracker-base-view
- Release Notes: https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-life-tracker-base-view/releases
I plan on including this plugin in future releases of the Obsidian Starter Kit. Stay tuned!
Claude Code as Universal Agent
I've been using Claude Code extensively, and I keep discovering new ways to leverage it. It's become my go-to AI assistant across virtually every domain of my work:
Software Development: Writing code, debugging, refactoring, building entire applications. Claude Code handles everything from simple scripts to complex multi-file projects.
Writing: Drafting articles, newsletters, documentation. It understands my voice and helps me express ideas more clearly.
Knowledge Management: Organizing notes, creating connections, building my PKM system. It reads my vault and helps me improve it without replacing my own thinking.
Personal Organization: Planning projects, breaking down goals, managing tasks. It helps me think through complex problems.
Productivity: Automating repetitive tasks, building tools, streamlining workflows.
Research: Exploring topics, synthesizing information, finding patterns across sources.
Documentation: Creating guides, writing explanations, building reference materials.
And more! Claude Code isn't just for coding. It's a general-purpose agent that can help with virtually anything you throw at it.
And now, I've taken this even further by building a bridge between Claude Code and WhatsApp... And this is super fun!
WhatsApp Claude Agent CLI
I built a CLI tool that lets you control Claude Code directly from WhatsApp. And it's awesome to use on the go!
What it does:
- Bridges WhatsApp messaging with Claude's AI capabilities
- Send messages from your phone, get AI-powered responses
- Full file manipulation and code generation support
- Works with WhatsApp groups (mention the agent to interact)
- Persist conversations across sessions
- Switch between Claude models on the fly
- Fully configurable via WhatsApp commands
Key Features:
- Multiple permission modes (read-only to full access)
- Session management with resume/fork capabilities
- Custom agent naming and system prompts
- In-chat commands for mode switching, configuration, and more
- Auto-update support
This is what I mean by Claude Code being a universal agent. You can control it from anywhere: your terminal, your IDE, or now your phone.
Links:
- GitHub: https://github.com/dsebastien/whatsapp-claude-agent
- Release Notes: https://github.com/dsebastien/whatsapp-claude-agent/releases
The Lab 🧪
These past weeks, I've had an absolute blast building things. There's something deeply satisfying about shipping tools that solve real problems.
Knowledge Management for Beginners Milestone
The Knowledge Management for Beginners course crossed 200+ students! 🎉

This course is close to my heart. It covers everything I know about Knowledge Management, from first principles to advanced techniques. Seeing more and more people take it and transform how they manage information is incredibly rewarding.
And the feedback I've been receiving lately? Absolutely heartwarming:
"Fantastic program that rings true on so many levels bringing out the true power offloading your memory in a frictionless way" — Sofia
"Don't let the "Beginners" title fool you—this course is a comprehensive guide to building a fully functional Second Brain. Sebastien goes far beyond simple note-taking; he teaches a complete lifecycle: from the "Capture Habit" and preventing the "Collector's Fallacy" to actually leveraging your knowledge for creative output. While the course offers great theoretical frameworks (PARA, Johnny Decimal, Zettelkasten), I loved how practical it got with Obsidian. The sections on automating workflows (Templater, Dataview) and the deep dive into integrating AI (Claude, MCP, NotebookLM) were absolute game-changers. I walked away not just with a set of notes, but with a "Life OS" that I can actually trust. Highly recommended!" — Olivier Larue
"I have worked in information systems since the 1980's and stumbled on some of these things haphazardly in both my personal and professional lives. I have never seen all these (knowledge and skills) teachings together before in countless books, videos and courses over the decades. I don't think that most of this knowledge even existed most of my life. This instructor is doing a great job of teaching me what I've been looking for (pretty intensely) since I was fourteen years old, and making me look forward to living the last (hopefully) third of my life with more focused clarity to reach my life's goals and purpose. I consider it an ideal gift for any (young) person who is serious about growing a more productive life with peace of mind." — Roger Frei
Reading these testimonials feels incredible. It's validation that all the hard work I've put into this course was worth every effort. Knowing that people are genuinely transforming how they manage their knowledge and their lives — that's why I do this ❤️
If you want to master the fundamentals of Knowledge Management, this is the course for you: https://knowledge-management-for-beginners.com
Tools Website
I built and deployed a new tools website at https://tools.dsebastien.net. It hosts various utilities I've created, including the Adobe Premiere Chapters to YouTube converter.

Obsidian Plugin Template Revamped
I've revamped my Obsidian plugin template to use Bun. It's so much faster and more powerful than before!
This new version will help me create Obsidian plugins more easily in the future. Bun makes the development experience incredibly smooth — faster installs, faster builds, and a cleaner developer experience overall.
It's also AI-ready, including explanations and guidance for AI assistants to effectively help build plugins the right way. Perfect for working with Claude Code or other AI coding assistants!
And it's free and open source (MIT license), so anyone can use it! If you're building Obsidian plugins, this template gives you a solid foundation with modern tooling.
GitHub: https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-plugin-template
Ghost Visibility CLI
I created a command-line tool to manage visibility settings for Ghost blog posts. It allows bulk updates through an interactive interface. Super useful when I need to change multiple posts at once.
Features:
- Smart filtering (visible/invisible posts)
- Batch processing (100 posts at a time)
- Interactive selection menu
- Bulk visibility updates (public, members-only, paid)
- Statistics display
GitHub: https://github.com/dsebastien/ghost-visibility-cli
Knowii Voice AI
On the positive side, I've added support for two new voice-to-text models in Knowii Voice AI:
- Moonshine: A lightweight model that enables support for low-end hardware. Now you can use Knowii Voice AI even on older machines!
- Meta's Omnilingual: A powerful model that supports tons of additional languages. Perfect for more powerful machines and multilingual users.
Unfortunately, the macOS version is currently stuck because of issues with Apple's notarization process. I've been trying to get it released, but Apple's system keeps rejecting my builds without clear explanations.
This issue has already cost me over $100 on GitHub Actions (building and signing macOS apps is expensive!), and Apple's support hasn't been particularly helpful. From what I've learned, this is quite common for new apps trying to get through the notarization process for the first time.
Hopefully, I should be able to release the macOS version in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the Windows version is available and working great!

Obsidian Starter Kit Ready for TaskNotes 4
Great news for Obsidian Starter Kit users! The kit is now ready for TaskNotes 4, and it's really awesome!
TaskNotes is the task management plugin that powers the task system in OSK. Version 4 brings significant improvements that make task management in Obsidian even more powerful and enjoyable.
If you're using OSK, make sure to update TaskNotes to get all the new goodies!

Knowledge Worker Kit Migration Complete
I've finished migrating the entire Knowledge Worker Kit guide over to my Obsidian vault and public notes!
This is a big deal. The guide now lives alongside all my other notes, which means I can easily integrate the content with the rest of my knowledge base. Cross-references, backlinks, and connections with related concepts make the guide much more valuable and easier to maintain.
If you want to level up your personal organization, productivity, and knowledge work skills, the Knowledge Worker Kit is for you. It covers everything from time management to goal setting, from habits to workflows.
Public Notes Now Include Metadata
My public notes now include metadata properties, folded by default. This gives you visibility into the structure and organization of my notes while keeping the content clean and readable.
What I'm Excited About
- Reached $3.5K sales this month
- My WhatsApp Claude Agent project
- Life Tracker plugin for Obsidian and its potential
- Decompilation capabilities of Claude Opus 4.5: https://blog.chrislewis.au/the-unexpected-effectiveness-of-one-shot-decompilation-with-claude
Knowii News
The Knowii Community continues to grow and thrive!
Upcoming: I'm planning new workshops focused on Obsidian. Stay tuned for announcements about deep dives into Obsidian Bases, Obsidian Canvas, Templating, Plugin Development, and more.
I'm also planning workshops about how to fully leverage AI for knowledge work, beyond software development.
If you're serious about Knowledge Management and want access to workshops, courses, and a community of like-minded people, consider joining the Knowii Community.
Yearly Challenge 🎯
The end of 2025 is approaching. It's time to prepare your yearly review.
Here's your challenge:
Step 1: Review your past notes
Go through your journal entries, weekly notes, and reflections from 2025. Understand where you are right now. What did you accomplish? What challenges did you face? What patterns do you notice? What are you grateful for?
Step 2: Prepare a fresh start for 2026
Clear the mental clutter. Archive what needs archiving. Close open loops (cfr Closing Open Loops - The Key to a Calmer, More Productive Mind (Article)). Create space for what's next.
Step 3: Bring clarity about where you want to go
Ask yourself:
- What should the next version of myself look like?
- What are my next challenges?
- What path do I choose for myself, going forward?
Step 4: Make your plans concrete
Don't just dream — define:
- Your goals for 2026
- The timeframe for each goal
- The urgency and importance of each
- The first concrete steps you'll take
A yearly review is one of the most powerful rituals you can develop. It forces you to be intentional about your life instead of drifting through it.
Don't skip this. Your future self will thank you.
Curious about the how? Then check out my Knowledge Worker Kit:
Latest Articles
12 Common Personal Knowledge Management Mistakes and How to Avoid Them (Article)
Most people fail at PKM before they even get started. A deep dive into the anti-patterns that kill PKM systems — overthinkers, tool hoppers, complexity monsters — and how to avoid them.

Build Your Knowledge System for Decades Not Months (Article)
Your knowledge base isn't a temporary project. It's your intellectual capital. Why long-term thinking matters, and how to build systems that last.

Announcing Life Tracker - A New Obsidian Plugin (Article)
The full story behind the plugin, its features, and how to use it for systematic life tracking.

Books
Currently reading:
- The Mist (book) by Stephen King
- Antifragile (book) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (re-reading)
Recently finished:
Quotes of the Week
- The best system is one you'll actually use
- To do your best work, focus on having fun
- The direct consequence of taking more notes is that you retain more information and knowledge. But the most important benefit is one of the second-order effects. You improve your thinking
- When the bar is set lower and when you focus on making meaningful progress, step by step, you get to focus more of your attention on how to move forward more effectively. This encourages experimentation and fosters creativity
- The fun thing when you have a mission is that you never run out of ideas. It's like a virus that you need to spread around, no matter what
New & Interesting Links
PKM / Thinking / Learning
- Obsidian 1.11.0 and 1.11.1 released: https://obsidian.md/changelog/
- Mobile: iOS widgets, Siri integration, Android widgets, bottom-aligned navigation, double-tap to switch modes
- Desktop: Markdown links in properties (auto-updated on rename!), daily note format selection, new "Keychain" for plugin secrets
- Overall: Lots of UX improvements and bug fixes
- Why note-taking is the fastest path to self-improvement: https://lucavettor.medium.com/why-note-taking-is-the-fastest-path-to-self-improvement-9dafc7eda8ef
- Eliott Meunier about Obsidian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9WPfWBCtdc
- Planning for a lifelong PKMS is near impossible (Reddit discussion): https://www.reddit.com/r/PKMS/comments/1otved4/planning_for_a_life_long_pkms_is_near_impossible
- What 18,000 files taught me about digital knowledge: https://medium.com/@CasparAddyman/what-18-000-files-taught-me-about-the-future-of-digital-knowledge-and-why-i-sent-robots-to-spy-on-5a34f7dce22d
- Augmenting Long-term Memory: https://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html
- The official Obsidian plugin template now includes an AGENTS.md file: https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-sample-plugin/blob/master/AGENTS.md
- I've included a variant in my Obsidian plugin template
- Obsidian 1.10 with faster performance: https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1oufulb/obsidian_110_for_desktop_and_mobile_with_faster
- Losing everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35m1V7AWJsk
- Backup your systems!
- Anti-productivity? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-v7qXpIvnk
- Not sure I agree with everything but still an interesting pov
- Obsidian for the win: https://medium.com/obsidian-observer/why-i-still-use-obsidian-for-notes-revisiting-the-piece-that-started-it-all-1c536eff540d
- Buiding my own PKMS: https://amberwilliams.io/blogs/building-my-own-pkms
- Obsidian, the tech stack for your brain you didn't know you needed: https://hackernoon.com/pkm-obsidian-the-tech-stack-for-your-brain-you-didnt-know-you-needed
AI
- Poems can trick AI: https://www.wired.com/story/poems-can-trick-ai-into-helping-you-make-a-nuclear-weapon
- Edit PDFs with Nano Banana https://github.com/gavrielc/Nano-PDF
- Opus 4.5 collapsed six months of development work into one week: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/opus-4-5-collapsed-six-months-of-development-work-into-one-week
- Chrome DevTools MCP server: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/chrome-devtools-mcp
- How to use the plan mode of Claude Code: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/common-workflows?s=03#how-to-use-plan-mode
- Router for Claude Code: https://github.com/musistudio/claude-code-router
- Price per token comparison: https://pricepertoken.com
- Open WebUI: https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui
- Better using the Gemini CLI: https://github.com/addyosmani/gemini-cli-tips
- FLUX.2 was released: https://bfl.ai/blog/flux-2
- Underwhelming compared to what Google Banana delivered
- The MCP protocol continues to evolve: https://blog.modelcontextprotocol.io/posts/2025-09-26-mcp-next-version-update
- Deepak Chopra's AI chat: https://www.deepakchopra.ai
Cool
- Digg is making a comeback: https://www.digg.com/
- YouTube auto downloader: https://github.com/andrewarrow/starchive
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, I share practical and battle-tested systems. You can follow me on X 🐦 and on BlueSky 🦋.
I am an author, founder, and coach. I write books and articles about Knowledge Work, Personal Knowledge Management, Note-taking, Lifelong Learning, Personal Organization, and Zen Productivity. I also craft lovely digital products.
If you want to follow my work, then become a member and join our community.
Ready to get to the next level?
If you're tired of information overwhelm and ready to build a reliable knowledge system:
- 🎯 Join Knowii and get access to my complete knowledge transformation system
- 📚 Take the Course and Master Knowledge Management
- 🚀 Start with a Rock-solid System: the Obsidian Starter Kit
- 🦉 Get Personal Coaching: Work with me 1-on-1
- 🛒 Check out my other products and services. These will give you a rock-solid starting point for your note-taking and Knowledge Management efforts




