How to · Obsidian
Keeping your reading as notes
A chat disappears. Notes do not. Obsidian is a free app that keeps plain text files in an ordinary folder on your own device — no account, no upload — and your assistant can write your reading into it.
You only need this if you bought the vault add-on. Everything else in your file works without it. Setup takes about five minutes.
1Install Obsidian and make a vault
Download it free from obsidian.md — Windows, Mac, Android and iPhone. Open it, choose Create new vault, call it Astrodai. A vault is just a folder on your device. Drop your chart file into it.
2Ask your assistant for a note
In your chat, after any answer you want to keep, say: “write that as a vault note.” You get back a block of text with a title.
3Make a new note and paste it in
In Obsidian, press Ctrl+N (Cmd+N on Mac), paste, save. That is the whole loop. Do it again tomorrow and the notes start linking themselves together.
That is the whole setup. Everything below is optional.
What a note looks like
Each one starts with a one-line summary, carries the reading, and ends with links to related notes in [[double brackets]]. Obsidian turns those into real links, so a map of your own life fills in as you go — click partnership in one note and land on everything else that touched it.
The folders your assistant will use
You do not need to make these now. Your assistant will tell you which folder each note belongs in, and you create it then.
00 - Overview & Synthesisthe one-page picture and what matters most01 - Chart Data & Referenceyour chart file, and a key to the words used02 - Wealth & Careerincome, work, what helps and what leaks03 - Relationshipspartnership, the run-up years, the dynamic04 - Self, Purpose & Spiritpurpose, practice, the private patterns05 - Remedies & Action Planswhat to actually do, week by week06 - Timing & Forecastsperiods, transits, the year ahead07 - Gamified Self (Trilogy)the graded stat sheets, if you have that add-on08 - Life Readingsparents, children, friendships, travel, later years10 - Sources & Methodologywhy a conclusion was reachedDay-to-Day Analysisdated notes, one per session
Letting your assistant read the folder itself (computer only)
Some assistants can open files in a folder you choose. If yours can, point it at your vault folder and it will read your earlier notes while answering the next question — so it stops repeating itself and starts building on what it already told you. If yours cannot, paste the relevant note into the chat instead. Same effect, one step manual.
Using it on your phone
Obsidian’s phone app is free and works exactly the same way. Four things are worth knowing.
- Making the vault. On Android, Obsidian creates the folder wherever you choose. On iPhone, pick iCloud Drive when it asks where the vault should live — if you pick “on my iPhone”, the notes stay on that one device.
- Getting the file in. Save the chart file from your email, then in Obsidian use the file drawer to place it in
01 - Chart Data & Reference. On iPhone you can also move it in the Files app — the vault is an ordinary folder. - Same notes on phone and computer. Keep the vault folder in a cloud drive you already pay nothing for — iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox — and open that folder as the vault on both. Obsidian sells its own sync; you do not need it for this.
- The loop is the same. Ask for a note, copy it, new note, paste. Copying between two apps is fiddlier on a phone than on a computer, so many people read on the phone and write up on a laptop.