Alex's Obsidian Guide

• How to make a website like this
• 2025-08-05

What is this guide for?

1. How to set up Obsidian to be a nice writing tool
   - (In a very “80/20” way → I don’t believe in complicated, over-engineered “knowledge management” setups, total distracting busywork IMO. Just write shit dude)
2. How to set up and Obsidian/Quartz website

What’s wrong with Obsidian “out of the box”?

• I think Obsidian is great, but out of the box it’s both a little ugly and missing a few small quality-of-life things that you have to turn on
• So, let’s make a brand new vault to see what it’s like and what I have to set up to make it nice

Back-end/front-end distinction

• This guide will be written for someone who wants to make an Obsidian/Quartz website. (That is, my friend Simmo, who I’ve been pestering to set up a digital orchard for weeks)
• You use the Obsidian desktop app as your writing tool, the “back-end” of your website
• And you set up a Quartz instance to be the “front-end” of your website
• Note this back-end/front-end distinction! E.g., if you change the theme in the Obsidian desktop app, it will not change the theme in the Quartz front-end, as they are fundamentally different tools

Ok, the guide

• Obsidian Guide - Phase 1 - A pretty writing space
• Obsidian Guide - Phase 2 - A slightly more intentional infrastructure
• Obsidian Guide - Phase 3 - Small quality of life things
• Basic “how to make new pages and stuff” Obsidian guide for Simmo

Appendix

• Making a second Obsidian Vault (and retaining your settings, hotkeys, etc)
• Setting up Quartz if you already have an Obsidian setup
• How does a Quartz + Obsidian vault differ from a normal Obsidian vault?
• It’ll have you download a “new” Obsidian vault
• So, copy-paste your files into the new vault, and your setup file thing