Design Decisions
The choices behind the site and why: plain Markdown as the source of truth, no framework, static pages, word search only, and failing closed.
My notebook has moved through Obsidian, Foam, and a published Astro site. These are the choices that stuck, and why.
The files are the source of truth
The notebook is a folder of Markdown files in Git. The site is a view of it, rebuilt on every push, and never edited directly. If the site disappeared tomorrow, nothing would be lost.
No framework
The build is one Node script and a Markdown parser. A framework would bring upgrades, a second set of format rules, and its own ideas about content. The earlier Astro site left a cleanup behind when the notebook moved off it.
Read here, work elsewhere
The site is read-only and static. Writing and organizing happen on my computer, where the CLI and Claude Code have the whole notebook. That keeps the site simple, free to host, and with nothing to break.
Word search only
The site's search is word search, scored the same way as the CLI's. Search by meaning needs a language model, which would mean a server, a cost, and something to maintain, so it stays in the CLI on the one computer that has the model. On a phone, words are enough.
Fail closed
For the private version, a gap in the setup should mean nobody gets in, not that everyone does. See Privacy and Hosting.