init-vault

init-vault is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills. It costs 81 tokens per session (841 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A setup guide for an Obsidian vault, which is a folder of linked notes used as a personal knowledge base. It creates context maps for the PARA structure: Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to initialize or update navigation files across an Obsidian vault, map its PARA folders, and refresh only modules that have changed.
Why use it?
It helps an AI or person navigate a large collection of notes without reading every file first. It records where information belongs while leaving the original notes unchanged.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md.

Good fit Use it to initialize or update navigation files across an Obsidian vault, map its PARA folders, and refresh only modules that have changed.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills/init-vault
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills --skill init-vault
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for init-vault

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills/init-vault/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills/init-vault)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills/init-vault"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills/init-vault/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for init-vault

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills/init-vault"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills/init-vault.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 81 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 841 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00081 $0.00841
Opus 5 $0.00041 $0.00420
Sonnet 5 $0.00016 $0.00168
Haiku 4.5 $0.00008 $0.00084

Measured 9d ago against content hash 6e195da29600, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

init-vault scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

init-vault/SKILL.md · 101 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 101 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Initialize Obsidian Vault Context (大脑全景图初始化)

This skill establishes a structured context map for Obsidian second brain vaults using the PARA method (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives). It creates CLAUDE.md files throughout the vault that serve as AI-readable navigation and context for knowledge work.

Quick Start

/init-vault                    # Full vault incremental update
/init-vault Areas/AI          # Update specific module only

Core Principles

  1. Safety First: Read-only mode. Never modify original notes.
  2. Registry Pattern: Maintains root CLAUDE.md as vault routing table.
  3. Dispatch Architecture: Recursively deploys init-engineer agents to active PARA modules.

Workflow

Stage A: Terrain Scanning (Inventory)

Scan top-level directories (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives):

  • Identify all sub-modules (second-level folders)
  • Check .claude/index.json or modification time for incremental updates
  • Skip unchanged modules to optimize performance

Stage B: Distributed Execution (Iterative Dispatch)

Critical: Do not pass all paths to a single agent (causes tool call limits).

Loop through target modules and dispatch init-engineer in batches:

For each module (or batch of 3-5 modules):
  - Call init-engineer agent with:
    - module_path: <current_path>
    - mode: "adaptive"
  - Handle errors: log and continue, don't halt entire process
  - Collect status reports from each agent

See references/init-engineer-spec.md for the agent specification.

Stage C: Aggregate Index

Update root CLAUDE.md with:

  • Mermaid structure diagram: PARA topology visualization
  • Active context links: List of just-updated module CLAUDE.md files
  • Global changelog: Summary of this initialization run

Safety & Boundaries

Read-Only Principle

  • Read .md, .canvas, and other text files only
  • Absolutely forbidden: Modify or delete any original notes

Read the full file on GitHub · 101 lines

Files

What ships with it

3 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 101 lines · 81 tokens per session scan A 6e195da29600

Subscribe to this mod's changes

init-vault is a skill published in the GitHub repository air-yan/obsidian_second_brain_skills (2 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 81 tokens to every session and 841 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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