[[goals]] [[constraints]] [[decisions]] → context → ask AI
For people building a second brain in Obsidian
Stop re-explaining your work to AI.
Better models keep arriving — and they still can’t read your mind. What separates a generic answer from a genuinely useful one is the context you bring: your goals, your constraints, the decisions you’ve already made. Second Brain Sidekick helps you build that context in Obsidian and hand it to AI on purpose.
The idea
Prompts are the entrance. Context is the foundation.
Everyone is learning to prompt. Far fewer are building the context that makes prompting worth it. As models get stronger, that context becomes the real advantage — the part only you can supply. This site is where we work it out in the open: how to capture it, keep it, and put it to work.
The problem
Good prompts still start from a blank page.
When the background to your work is scattered across chats, documents, and memory, every useful question begins by rebuilding it. The result is slow setup, generic answers, and decisions that are hard to carry forward.
The method
Context → decisions → action.
No magical memory. A practical loop for keeping the right context close when a decision needs to be made.
01 / Capture
Notice the signal.
Capture the question, constraint, or decision while it is still useful.
02 / Organize
Keep the context you own.
Store goals, priorities, and prior decisions in notes you can review and revise.
03 / Consult
Ask with the right background.
Share only the relevant context with an AI assistant instead of starting from a blank chat.
04 / Act
Move one step forward.
Turn the response into a next action and let the decision become part of your working system.
Learn
Learn the method, in the open.
The core ideas are free: essays on how to build context, structure a vault, and get advice that fits your actual situation instead of the average one. Deeper field guides go further — walking through the full system, step by step, for people who want to run it end to end.
Run
Tools that make context effortless.
When the method is ready to become a habit, the tools carry it. The Starter Kit gives you a working Obsidian setup in five notes — so you begin from a real system, not a blank vault:
- [[Current Context]]
- [[AI Advisor Memory]]
- [[Daily Note]]
- [[Project MOC]]
- [[Agent rules]]
It uses sample data, never overwrites your vault, and is easy to undo. Paired with Talk to Action, you can capture a decision or constraint by voice — straight into Obsidian, before it slips away. Early access is on the way.
What this is — and isn’t
A better starting point for every important question.
Second Brain Sidekick is not a promise that AI remembers everything forever. It’s a method — and a small set of tools — for making the context you already own easier to use, on your terms.
[[the map]]
Every article, and how it connects
This site is written as a graph, not a list. Hollow nodes are free to read; filled nodes are part of a paid guide. Pick any point and follow the links out from it.
- Writing an AI Advisor Memory note that actually helps
- Choose the AI context workflow that fits your work
- How to capture useful AI context before you forget it
- Why saving an AI answer won't improve the next one
- Why you still need your own notes when ChatGPT has memory
- AI context tools for capture, handoff, and action
- How to share context with AI safely
- Case study: one product decision, with and without context
- The five-note setup: copyable templates for AI context
- Give, blur, keep local, or never share: the four buckets
- How to hand context to an AI assistant, step by step
- Turn your Obsidian article map into a WordPress site
- Set up Obsidian for AI context in ten minutes
- How to keep AI context in notes you control
- When five notes aren't enough: build a context system
- Build a reusable AI briefing in Obsidian
- The Starter Kit, explained: five notes, one working system
- Turn the answer into one next action
- What an AI second brain is—and what it is not
- Why AI gives generic advice—and how context changes it