My Public Second Brain

See on ssp.sh/brain.

This is a fork of the Quartz repo (v3 with Hugo). I added some additional features such as:

• Tagging with #publish automatically copies the note from my private second brain in Obsidian to this public second brain
• Converts the first header (# my title) into frontmatter and removes it (as Quartz expects)
• Smart description extraction from first paragraph with automatic cleaning:
  • Removes wikilinks, markdown formatting, list markers
  • Intelligent sentence truncation for complete thoughts
  • Displays on OG images as text overlay (Kanagawa color scheme)
  • Used in meta tags for SEO and social media previews
• BASE file support for publishing Obsidian database views:
  • Publishes Database Folder plugin .base files as standalone Hugo pages
  • Generates HTML tables from database entries with wikilinks
  • Supports folder filters and exclusion patterns
  • Recursive subdirectory scanning
  • Examples: Coffee Beans, Books
• YouTube links in Obsidian image syntax (![title](https://youtube.com/watch?v=XXX)) render as embedded video players instead of broken images
• Callout blocks are normalized so compact and spaced forms render identically

The content/notes themselves are not published in this repo, only on ssp.sh/brain.

Explore with RAG → explore.ssp.sh

Semantic search, hidden connections, and graph traversal powered by obsidian-note-taking-assistant.

Utils

Content processing: obsidian-quartz

Rust CLI tool that processes Obsidian vault notes and outputs Hugo-compatible markdown. Handles frontmatter, tags, images, OG image generation, callout normalization, BASE database views, and more.

Key features:

• Markdown publishing: Processes notes tagged with #publish
• BASE database views: Publishes Obsidian Database Folder plugin .base files as HTML tables
• Filter expressions: Supports folder filters and exclusion patterns (!file.path.contains)
• Smart descriptions: Auto-extracts clean descriptions from first paragraph
• OG image generation: Creates social media preview images with SVG→WebP conversion

See utils/obsidian-quartz/README.md for details.

Backlink and graph creation

The tool used is hugo-obsidian, a small Go program written by Jacky. Here's the source. It is not maintained anymore (as there is now a v4 without it) and it had bugs and didn't show all my backlinks. That's why I forked it and fixed the backlinks. You can find it here: sspaeti/hugo-obsidian.

Hugo render hooks

Custom render hooks in layouts/_default/_markup/:

• render-image.html - Detects YouTube URLs and renders responsive iframe embeds (with timestamp support); all other images pass through normally

Configs

Redirects of renamed files

Find these in .htaccess

ChangeLog

2026-04-17: Obsidian BASE file support for database views

• BASE File Publishing (utils/obsidian-quartz/src/base_*.rs):
  • Added support for Obsidian Database Folder plugin .base files
  • Parses BASE YAML files with filters, views, properties, and formulas
  • Implements temporary staging workflow to avoid private vault scanning:
    • Copies source files to /content/BASES/<base-name>/ during processing
    • Queries from staging folder to build tables
    • Cleans up staging folder after generation
  • Filter Support:
    • Folder filters: file.path.contains("path")
    • Extension filters: file.ext.contains("md")
    • Exclusion patterns: !file.path.contains("path") to skip folders
    • Recursive subdirectory scanning
  • Table Generation:
    • Renders HTML tables with proper styling (base-table-container, base-table)
    • Generates wikilinks ([[Name]]) that resolve to published content
    • Supports multiple columns with custom properties
    • Includes description/intro content before tables
  • Frontmatter:
    • Sets enableToc: false, enableBacklinks: false, enableGraph: false
    • Auto-generates title from BASE filename
  • Examples: Coffee Beans (46 entries), Books (184 entries, excluding 1256 Study books)
• Code Structure:
  • base_parser.rs: Parse BASE YAML into Rust structs (serde)
  • base_query.rs: Query notes with filter expressions, extract folder/extension/exclusion patterns
  • base_renderer.rs: Render notes as HTML tables with formatted values (ratings, prices)
  • file_utils.rs: Orchestrate BASE processing workflow with staging and cleanup

2026-04-17: Smart description extraction and OG image enhancement

• Description Extraction (utils/obsidian-quartz/src/file_utils.rs):
  • Automatically extracts clean descriptions from first paragraph after frontmatter
  • Removes wikilinks ([[Link]] → Link), markdown links ([Text](URL) → Text)
  • Strips formatting, list markers, blockquotes
  • Smart sentence truncation (prefers complete sentences, max 180 chars)
  • Stores as quoted description: "..." in frontmatter for proper YAML syntax
  • Manual override via desc: frontmatter field
• OG Image Enhancement (utils/obsidian-quartz/src/svg_generator.rs):
  • Added description text overlay (24px, Kanagawa oldWhite #C8C093)
  • Reduced title font sizes (44-60px) to make room for description
  • Optimized text wrapping (title: 25 chars/line, description: 60 chars/line)
  • Removed fixed accent line for cleaner layout
• Hugo Template Updates (layouts/partials/head.html):
  • Created $cleanDescription variable with priority: manual → auto-extracted → .Summary
  • Applied wikilink/markdown cleaning to all meta tags
  • Updated og:description, twitter:description, and JSON-LD schema

2025-10-16: Fix cross-section navigation (brain ↔ blog)

• Modified assets/js/router.js to intercept clicks between /brain/ and other sections, forcing full page loads instead of SPA navigation
• Prevents "null" page errors when navigating from brain to main blog
• Compatible with assets/js/external-links.js which handles truly external links