Your vault

A vault is a folder on your computer containing Markdown files. That is the whole concept.

Nodez is an interface over that folder, not the owner of it. Nothing is imported, nothing is converted, and nothing is locked away in a format only Nodez can read. Open the same folder in any text editor and everything is there.

What lives in the folder#

What	Where
Your notes	.md files, anywhere in the folder
Images and files	usually an attachments/ folder
Nodez's own data	.nodez/
Obsidian's settings	.obsidian/, if you use it

You can organise notes into subfolders however you like, or not at all. Links work across folders, so folder structure is a convenience rather than the way things connect.

The only thing Nodez adds is the .nodez/ folder, which holds the index and the graph. It is rebuilt from your notes, so it is safe to delete - Nodez will just build it again.

Using a vault you already have#

If you already keep notes in Obsidian, point Nodez at that same folder. It reads the files as they are, wikilinks included, and leaves .obsidian/ alone. Both apps can use the folder.

Nodez does not run Obsidian plugins, so anything a plugin generates will be plain text as far as Nodez is concerned.

How notes are identified#

A note is identified by its path in the folder - Projects/Roadmap.md is that note.

When you rename a note in Nodez, it updates the links pointing at it so nothing breaks. If you rename the file outside Nodez, the links keep the old name and show up as unresolved until you fix them.

Ways to write a link#

Beyond the basic Note Title, a few forms are worth knowing:

Form	What it does
Note Title	Links to that note
Folder/Note Title	Links to a note in a particular folder, when two share a name
Note Title#Heading	Links straight to a heading inside that note
Alias	Links to the note but displays different text

See Links and backlinks for what happens once you start using them.

Notes at the top of a file#

A note can begin with a block of properties between two lines of dashes:

---
title: Roadmap
tags:
  - planning
---

This is frontmatter, and it is the same convention Obsidian and most static site generators use. Nodez reads it, shows it in the note properties panel, and uses the tags. Editing properties inside the app is only partly built - for now, the reliable way to change them is to edit the text.

Backing up and moving#

Because a vault is just a folder, everything you already know about folders applies. Copy it, put it in Dropbox, zip it, keep it on an external drive. If it is a git repository, Nodez can sync it for you - see Syncing with GitHub.