Adopt an existing vault

If you already have notes, you do not need to start over. init adopts an Obsidian vault or any repository that is mostly Markdown.

Before

The vault needs to be in a git repository with a remote. If it is not yet, in the vault folder:

git init
git add -A
git commit -m "primeiro commit"
git remote add origin git@github.com:voce/vault-obsidian.git
git push -u origin main

Use a private repository.

Adopt

init clones the repository into a new folder: it refuses a folder that already exists and is not empty, including the folder where the vault lives today. Run init with the URL (the brain goes to ~/cabecao, or to the --dir folder):

$ cabecao init git@github.com:voce/vault.git
...
Pronto. Seu cérebro está em ~/cabecao (máquina notebook) e em git@github.com:voce/vault.git.

Vault adotado: .cabecao.json, .gitattributes, .gitignore, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md acrescentados ou completados e enviados na branch main; nenhuma nota foi movida, renomeada ou alterada.
Índice local: 1 nota indexada em 4 ms.

Obsidian: O cérebro é a pasta ~/cabecao, um clone novo do vault. Se o Obsidian abre este vault de outra pasta, ele continua abrindo aquela cópia, que não recebe o que os agentes gravam aqui: no Obsidian, use "Abrir pasta como cofre" (Open folder as vault) e escolha ~/cabecao. Depois de conferir que está tudo aqui, apague a cópia antiga ou deixe de usá-la.
...
Opcional:
  ...
  cabecao obsidian setup  Obsidian: grafo colorido por tipo, propriedades e
                          painéis

Now there are two folders

After init, your brain is the new folder. The old vault folder stays where it was, and Obsidian keeps opening it until you switch: what the agents save goes to the new folder, and what you write in the old one does not reach the agents. In Obsidian, use Open folder as vault and pick the new folder. Once you have checked that everything is there, delete the old one (it is just another clone of the same repository).

Adopting the vault where it is, without cloning, does not exist yet (it is under study).

What changes in the vault

Only new or completed files, in one commit:

File	What happens
.cabecao.json	Created, with the note folders
.gitignore and .gitattributes	Completed with the missing lines; what you had stays
AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md	Created only if they do not exist. A CLAUDE.md of yours stays as it is; add the line @AGENTS.md to it
index.md	If the vault already has one, it stays as it is, and Cabeção's catalog goes to cabecao-index.md
log.md	If the vault already has one, Cabeção's log appends lines at the end of it

The note folders are wiki, memory, and raw (where Cabeção writes new notes; they are created when the first note arrives) plus the vault folders that already contain Markdown. In the example, Diário and Projetos:

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "noteDirs": [
    "wiki",
    "memory",
    "raw",
    "Diário",
    "Projetos"
  ],
  "indexMd": "index.md"
}

If the vault has loose notes at the root, the list becomes ["."]: the whole root.

Your old notes

Notes without a type are still notes. They show up in search and in the graph as "sem tipo" (untyped):

$ cabecao search rúcula
2 resultado(s) para "rúcula", com todos os termos (validade em 2026-11-13):

1. 2026-11-01  [sem tipo]  vigente
   Diário/2026-11-01.md
   Plantei a «rúcula» hoje.

2. Lista de sementes  [sem tipo]  vigente
   Projetos/Lista de sementes.md › Lista de sementes
   - Alface - «Rúcula»

Relacionadas (vizinhas dos melhores resultados no grafo; fora da ordem acima):
- Horta comunitária  (Projetos/Horta comunitária.md)  ← link para Projetos/Lista de sementes.md

Modo: keyword (a busca por significado não está ativada neste cérebro ("cabecao embeddings on" ativa)).

You do not need to convert anything. If you want an old note to count as a decision, preference, or fact, add the type (and whatever else makes sense) to its frontmatter.

When init refuses

init refuses a repository that looks like code (package.json, src/ with code, Cargo.toml, and other markers) and a repository without .obsidian/ in which less than 80% of the content is Markdown or attachments (images, PDFs, .canvas...). In these cases nothing is created or changed.

The guide to daily use with Obsidian is in Use with Obsidian.