9 / 13My First AI Agent — Part II · 20 min read

Data vault

A folder of your own notes the agent can read and search.

Vault pattern

inbox/

Drops

sources/

Cited inputs

synthesis/

Linked notes

Retrieve

Agent cites files

Make the vault, then hand it over

A vault sounds like software. It is a folder of markdown files — no database, no API, no plugin. Nothing to integrate: you make the folder, then tell your agent where it is.

Obsidian is the window, not the wiring. You install it for yourself — the graph view, backlinks, instant search. The agent works on the same files whether Obsidian is open or closed. That is the file over app ↗ idea, made concrete.

Order matters here: make the vault first, then hand it to your agent. Obsidian creates the folder for you as part of its own setup, so there is nothing to build by hand.

Steps · tap the number to check0/4

Download Obsidian ↗ and install it. No account needed.
On first launch choose Create new vault. Name it second-brain.
Choose where it lives, and write the path down — you hand it to your agent in a moment. Somewhere plain like your home folder is ideal; avoid a cloud-synced folder, or you will be resolving sync conflicts later.
Write one short note about something real — a decision you made this week, notes from a call. Just one; you need something in there worth finding.

That is your part. Hermes ships an Obsidian skill already installed, so all it needs is the path — it reads OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH from the .env file in your Hermes home. Set it and restart Hermes.

Add to ~/.hermes/.env

OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH=/home/you/second-brain

Use the full path you wrote down — file tools do not expand ~ or $VARS. If you skip this, the skill looks in ~/Documents/Obsidian Vault, which is almost certainly not where yours is. Not sure where your Hermes home is? Ask your agent: “Where is your Hermes home folder?”

Now check it can read: ask something only your note could answer. If it quotes your own words back, the wiring is good.

Then let it write, which is the more useful half. Ask it to set the place up for you:

Ask your agent

Set up my vault: create folders for inbox, sources and synthesis,
and add a short README note explaining what each one is for.

Approve the writes. Then look at Obsidian — the folders and the note are there. That is the proof it can write as well as read, and you never had to make them by hand.

A Hermes chat: the user asks it to use an Obsidian vault as their second-brain and create inbox, sources and synthesis folders with a README. The agent confirms the folders and README were created, then in a second message adds deltav.cc as a source file under sources/, and finishes with a table listing each folder and its purpose. — What it looks like in practice. Note the second message — once the vault is wired, filing something new is one sentence: **“Add deltav.cc as a source for my OpSec in our vault.”** It created the note, put it in the right folder, and remembered.

Teach it your filing habits

Those three folders are our suggestion, not a rule Obsidian or Hermes imposes. They exist to answer one question every notes system eventually faces — where does this go?

`inbox` — anything you dumped in a hurry and have not sorted yet.
`sources` — things other people wrote: clippings, quotes, papers, links.
`synthesis` — what you concluded, in your own words. This is the folder that gets valuable.

Rename them, drop one, use your own scheme — it makes no difference to the agent, as long as you tell it which scheme you chose. The skill knows how to work a vault; it does not know how you file. Two lines in MEMORY.md from the last lesson make your choice permanent:

Add to MEMORY.md

- My vault: inbox = unsorted, sources = what I read, synthesis = my own conclusions.
- Search the vault before answering questions about my projects. File new notes in inbox/.

Ask the agent to add these lines, or type them yourself — it is a plain text file.

Now the structure earns its keep: when the agent files things the way you do, its notes and your notes stay one library instead of two.

The [[double brackets]] are plain text — nothing magic. Obsidian reads them and draws the graph you came for; the agent writes them too, so the graph keeps growing whether the note came from you or from it.

Proof checklist

Checklist · this device0/4

Exercise · Check yourself

What is a vault in this course?

Pick one — the answer is revealed straight away.

Go further

You are done when

Proof · this device0/1

Stored on this device only — not sent anywhere.

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