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DR-001: Obsidian as primary wiki, Notion for 4 narrow exceptions only

Status

Accepted — 2026-04-14 · CEO-approved

Context

The eco|monetize™ operating system needed a canonical home for wiki content: tool setup guides, platform configs, playbooks, best practices, decision records, and research captures. Rick was concerned about tool sprawl — having the same content in multiple places (Notion + Obsidian + Google Docs + Confluence) creates the illusion of truth while drift silently corrupts the record.

The question: where does wiki content live?

Decision

Default all content to Obsidian (the /Claude/ vault). Use Notion only for four narrowly-defined exceptions:

  1. External editor collaboration — a non-Obsidian user needs to edit with Rick (lawyer redlining, consultant reviewing, investor commenting). Temporary, migrate back after.
  2. External read-only sharing (ongoing) — partner portal, client reference. Source of truth stays in Obsidian; Notion is a derived view updated on schedule.
  3. Mobile-heavy capture from non-technical users — future hires who can't operate Obsidian mobile. Captures sync to /Claude/inbox/ and route into the vault.
  4. One-off ephemeral documents — single RFP response, single deck review. Used once, archived, never synced.

Anything else stays in Obsidian. The no-duplication rule is strict: every piece of content has exactly one canonical home.

Alternatives considered

Option A — Default to Notion, use Obsidian only for local governance

Rejected. Notion's database queries are weaker than Obsidian + Dataview. Agents can read/write Obsidian filesystem directly but Notion requires MCP calls with rate limits. Context-switching cost is real. Graph view + wikilinks + backlinks are native to Obsidian.

Option B — Use both equally, split by content type

Rejected. This is exactly the tool sprawl Rick wanted to prevent. "Split by content type" means constant routing decisions, inconsistent behavior, and eventual drift.

Option C — Use neither, build a custom wiki

Rejected. Time cost vs. benefit is unfavorable. Obsidian already does 95% of what a custom wiki would do.

Option D — Default to Obsidian with 4 narrow Notion exceptions

Accepted. Codified in /Claude/system/org/tool-selection-policy-v1.0.md.

Consequences

What becomes easier: - One home for all governance + operational + reference content - Agents read/write Obsidian directly via filesystem - Wikilinks + graph view + backlinks work natively - Dataview queries enable live dashboards from vault state - Git-trackable — every edit is a commit - No context switching for daily ops

What becomes harder: - External collaboration requires Notion-as-exception workflow (temporary but operational) - Rick must curate which content is vault-worthy vs. ephemeral — no "just dump it in Notion" escape hatch - Non-technical future hires working primarily from mobile need the Notion-exception pattern

Trade-off accepted: One-time friction of establishing the Obsidian-primary pattern in exchange for durable governance clarity and zero tool sprawl as the team scales.

  • [[tool-selection-policy-v1.0]] — the codified policy this decision produced
  • [[CLAUDE]] Section 14 — vault folder structure assuming Obsidian primary
  • [[obsidian]] — tool page
  • [[notion]] — tool page (narrow-use only)

Date: 2026-04-14 · Author: chief.staff · Stakeholders: ceo