Vault Intelligence

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Explorer: Find connections ​

The Explorer view helps you rediscover forgotten notes and find hidden relationships between ideas as you write.

Opening the Explorer ​

  1. Click the brain circuit icon in the left ribbon to open the Vault Intelligence menu.
  2. Select Explorer: view similar notes to open the list view, or Explorer: view semantic galaxy to open the interactive graph.
  3. Alternatively, use the Command Palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P) and search for: Explorer.

Finding Similar Notes ​

The "Similar notes" view provides a prioritized list of related documents. It works automatically based on your current active note.

  • Automatic Updates: As you switch between notes, the Explorer list refreshes to show the most semantically similar content in your vault.
  • Semantic Matching: Unlike standard search, it finds notes that share the same meaning, even if they use different keywords.
  • Relevance Scores: Each suggestion includes a similarity percentage. High scores (eg 85%+) indicate very close conceptual matches.

The Semantic Galaxy ​

The Semantic Galaxy is a 3D-like, interactive graph view that complements the similar notes list. While the list view is perfect for quick navigation, the galaxy visualises your vault's relationships in real-time, helping you spot clusters and bridge siloed ideas.

Opening the Galaxy ​

You can access the galaxy through the same ribbon menu or via the Command Palette. Using the Explorer: view semantic galaxy command will open the graph in a new tab or reveal it if it is already open.

Interaction and Controls ​

  • Visual RAG: When the Researcher agent mentions a note in its chat, the note will glow in the galaxy view, helping you "see" the AI's reasoning.
  • Attraction Slider: Use the sidebar slider to adjust the "gravity" of the layout. High attraction pulls related notes into tight clusters, while low attraction allows for a broader, flat view.
  • Reshuffle: Click the reshuffle button to instantly regenerate the layout if the nodes become tangled.
  • Smart Panning: Double-click nodes to navigate to them, or hover to see a native Obsidian preview.

Use Cases ​

If you are writing about a new topic and feel like you've mentioned it before, check the Explorer. It might surface a note from two years ago that provides the perfect supporting evidence or a conflicting viewpoint.

Automated "See Also" sections ​

Use the Explorer to quickly find notes that should be linked together. Instead of searching, simply look at the top 3 suggestions and add [[links]] to bridge your silos.

Identifying duplicates ​

If a note shows a 99% similarity to another note, you might have accidentally created a duplicate or a very thin "stub" that should be merged.

Controlling the Scope ​

You can adjust how the Explorer calculates similarity in Settings > Explorer.

  • Minimum similarity: Increase this if you only want to see very strong matches.
  • Number of results: Limit this to keep your sidebar clean.
  • Semantic vs Structural: Adjust the weight of the galaxy layout to prioritise existing Wikilinks or hidden vector similarities.

Folders as semantic topics ​

Vault Intelligence supports multiple ways to organise your knowledge. While "Gardeners" often use explicit topics: properties (Wikilinks) inside their notes, "Architects" often prefer to organise notes by placing them in physical folders (eg /Projects/Apollo/Meeting.md).

To bridge this gap, the Implicit folder semantics feature allows the plugin to automatically treat your physical folder structure as semantic graph connections. This means notes in the same folder will naturally cluster together in the semantic galaxy and the Researcher agent will understand they share a context.

You can configure how aggressively the plugin interprets your folders via Settings > Explorer > Implicit folder semantics.

There are three modes available:

1. Ontology (default) ​

Best for: Most users. Keeps your graph clean while intelligently mapping structured folders.

In this mode, the plugin only treats a folder as a semantic topic if it perfectly matches an existing concept in your Knowledge Base / Ontology. For example, if you have a folder named /AI/ and a perfectly matching ontology note named AI.md:

  • The plugin will automatically link all notes inside the /AI/ folder to the AI.md concept node.
  • If you have a generic storage folder like /Archive/ or /Drafts/ (with no matching ontology note), the plugin will safely ignore them. This prevents your graph from being ruined by massive, meaningless "black hole" hubs.

2. All (aggressive) ​

Best for: Strict "Architect" users who use folders as their primary tagging system.

In this mode, every single folder in your vault is treated as a unique semantic topic, regardless of whether a matching note exists.

  • The plugin will generate "Virtual Nodes" for folders behind the scenes.
  • A note at /Books/Fantasy/Dune.md will be strongly linked to the concepts of Books and Fantasy.
  • Warning: If you have generic folders like /Attachments/ containing hundreds of images, they will form massive visual clusters in the semantic galaxy view.

3. None (disabled) ​

Best for: Strict "Gardener" users who rely 100% on explicit YAML properties and Wikilinks.

In this mode, physical folder paths are completely ignored by the graph and the Orama vector engine. A note's location on your hard drive will have zero impact on its semantic similarity scores or its position in the galaxy view.

If you physically place a note in /Projects/Apollo/ AND explicitly tag it with topics: [[Apollo]] in the frontmatter, the plugin is smart enough to deduplicate the connection. It will prioritise your explicit frontmatter tag (which carries a higher semantic weight) over the implicit folder path.