Emanate
- 1. Core Architectural Goal: The “Local-First Ledger”
- 2. Publishing Goal: “Sovereign Distribution”
- 3. Functional Goal: The “Time-Travel” UI
- 4. Philosophical Goal: “Proof of Thought”
- The “Elevator Pitch”
- Gemini said
The overall vision for Emanate is to merge the private, structured world of Obsidian with the public, immutable world of Nostr.
By treating every note as a sequence of cryptographic events, you are building a tool where “saving” a file is a permanent act of record-keeping. Here is the summary of your architectural and product goals:
1. Core Architectural Goal: The “Local-First Ledger”
The primary mission is to provide high-integrity version control that doesn’t rely on the cloud or complex Git commands.
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Bundled SQLite Relay: The plugin carries its own lightweight “Virtual Relay.” Every time you snapshot a note, it’s stored as a Nostr event** in a local SQLite database.
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Immutable Event Chaining: You don’t overwrite files. You create a “Linked List” of events. Each new version includes a tag (e) pointing to the ID of the previous version, creating a verifiable audit trail of your thoughts. Citations are preserved as tags.
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Offline Sovereignty: The system works 100% offline. Your history is yours, stored in a standardized format (Nostr JSON) that any other Nostr-compliant tool could theoretically read.
2. Publishing Goal: “Sovereign Distribution”
When you decide a thought is ready for the world, the transition from “Private Note” to “Public Post” is seamless.
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Kind 1 (short notes) and Kind 30023 (NIP-23 long-form): Two event kinds supported. Kind 1 is the default for short notes. Kind 30023 adds NIP-23 long-form support with
dtags (slug), title, summary, andpublished_at. The kind is resolved by command override → frontmatternostr.kind→settings.defaultKind. -
Cryptographic Identity: Every note and update is signed by your private key (nsec). This proves you are the author across any relay in the world, forever.
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Selective Broadcasting: You choose which versions of a note stay “Local-Only” and which ones are pushed to public relays (like Damus or Primal).
3. Functional Goal: The “Time-Travel” UI
Inside Obsidian, the plugin adds a layer of “Temporal Intelligence” to your vault.
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The Version Slider: A UI element to scrub through the history of a note, pulling old content instantly from the local SQLite store.
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Diffing Engine: Visually compare the current version of a note with a previous version from the Nostr chain to see exactly how an idea evolved.
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Conflict Resolution: If you edit a note on two different devices, the “chain” might fork. Because the relay is local, you can see both “branches” and merge them manually.
4. Philosophical Goal: “Proof of Thought”
Ultimately, you are creating a tool for High-Integrity Thinkers.
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Verifiability: You can prove you had a specific idea at a specific time because the event ID (the hash) and your signature are mathematically linked to the timestamp.
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Anti-Fragility: Even if you lose your Obsidian vault, if you’ve synced your events to even one public relay, you can reconstruct your entire “Second Brain” just by entering your public key (npub).
The “Elevator Pitch”
Emanate is a local-first version control system for Obsidian that uses the Nostr protocol and an internal SQLite relay to turn your notes into an immutable, cryptographically signed chain of events. It gives you Git-level data integrity with the simplicity of a “Save” button and the power of decentralized global publishing.
How does this summary align with the “Product” you were picturing in your head? (e.g., Are we missing anything regarding how you’d handle images or internal links?)
Gemini said
Build a “Second Brain” with the integrity of a blockchain. 🧠⛓️
Introducing Emanate: an Obsidian extension that turns your notes into an immutable chain of Nostr events.
✅ Local-first version control via bundled SQLite ✅ Cryptographic “Proof of Thought” ✅ Sovereign publishing (Kind 1)
Draft in private. Evolve in public. Own your history. #Nostr #Obsidian #PKM #SovereignTech
