# DeveloPassion's Newsletter #208 - Claws Edition 208 of my newsletter, discussing Knowledge Work, AI, Knowledge Management, Management, Zen Productivity, Personal Organization, and more! Hello everyone! I'm [[Sébastien Dubois]], your host. You're receiving this email because you signed up for DeveloPassion's Newsletter, or bought [one of my products](https://www.store.dsebastien.net/). Thank you for being here with me ✨ If you enjoy this, please forward it to your friends ❤️. If this email was forwarded to you, then don't forget to subscribe and become a supporter ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter Logo.png|DeveloPassion's Newsletter logo: lightbulb sprouting colorful idea nodes]] ## Welcome Welcome to all the new readers ❤️ Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩 These past few weeks have been a wild ride. I survived Binche's Carnival in Belgium (barely 😅), I'm planning my wedding (I've found my wedding suit! ❤️), I'm back at the gym after my injury, and somehow I still managed to ship three new Obsidian plugins, build a complete CRM inside my vault, and watch my AI agent evolve from a helpful assistant into something that feels like a real operational partner. ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter 208 - Claws - end of the carnival.png|Fireworks over Binche Carnival crowd under a 'Plus Oultre' banner in Belgium]] By the way if you want to see some awesome pictures of the Carnival of Binche: https://www.facebook.com/villedebincheofficiel The "Claws" theme isn't just clever wordplay. It's about how [[OpenClaw]] has gotten its claws into every part of my workflow, and how the new [[Obsidian CLI REST MCP plugin for Obsidian]] is connecting everything together in ways I couldn't have imagined just a month ago. Alright, let's gooooo 🚀 ## This Week's Highlights - 🤖 **AI agents that actually work** — OpenClaw crossed the line from tool to partner - 🔌 **Obsidian CLI REST MCP** — The missing bridge between my Obsidian vault and AI - 📊 **CRM in Obsidian** — All customer and sales data, beautifully integrated - ⏰ **Time Machine plugin** — Easy note recovery for your notes, finally - ⏰ **Bookshelf plugin** — Easy note recovery for your notes, finally ## Before You Go Any Further I want to reach more people. Got 20 seconds? Then share [the link](https://www.dsebastien.net/newsletter/) with one friend/colleague who would benefit from joining us! And of course, don't forget to also mention the [Knowii Community](https://www.store.dsebastien.net/product/knowii-community/) ❤️ And if you bought some of my products or courses? Then please [leave a rating/review](https://gumroad.com/reviews). It really helps a lot ❤️ ## The Lab 🧪 ### When AI Gets Its Claws Into Everything In the last edition, I told you about setting up [[OpenClaw]] and the concept of [[Agentic Knowledge Management (AKM)]]. What I didn't fully realize at the time was how quickly it would go from "interesting experiment" to "I can't imagine working without this anymore." LINK: - [[Agentic Knowledge Management - The Next Evolution of PKM (Article)]] - https://www.dsebastien.net/agentic-knowledge-management-the-next-evolution-of-pkm// These past few weeks, my OpenClaw agent has evolved from performing discrete tasks on autopilot to becoming a genuine operational partner. **What it's doing now:** - **Analyzes my stats** across platforms (Ahrefs, Google Search Console, Medium, YouTube, Plausible, Gumroad, ...) and identifies what's actually working, what to adjust, etc - **Manages my social media strategy** by analyzing multiple years of data and telling me exactly which content formats drive engagement vs. which ones I should stop wasting time on - **Prepares content drafts** about concepts from my Concepts Website, my notes, my articles, etc. All while respecting my writing style - **Monitors my business health** with daily sales briefs, weekly summaries, and monthly reports - **Keeps my knowledge base fresh** by regularly re-indexing notes with [[qmd]], cleaning up tags, etc - **Submits PRs** to my repositories (with proper identity and short-lived tokens), helping me implement features, add testimonials, etc - **Runs everything on a schedule** with versioned [[cron]] jobs It doesn't just respond to requests anymore. It **proactively surfaces insights** I didn't know I needed. For example, it analyzed my [[Typefully]] data and discovered that my resource-sharing posts (like Obsidian keyboard shortcuts) get 8-16% engagement and actual link clicks, while my quote tweets of popular accounts get 6K+ impressions but only 0.3% engagement. That's super useful to me. I wouldn't have found that pattern without dedicating hours to manual analysis. **[[AI agents are only as good as the knowledge systems they operate on]]**. My notes, my documented processes, my writing style guidelines, my content strategy, my articles, my ideas, my goals, my plans, my projects, etc. All of it is in my vault. The agent doesn't guess. It knows. This is what I mean by [[Agentic Knowledge Management (AKM)]]. It's not just AI-assisted note-taking. It's AI agents that **operate** on your knowledge system to create, analyze, connect, and act. And don't get me wrong. It's not about replacing my thinking. It's about enabling me to do more. ### Obsidian CLI REST MCP: The Missing Bridge The [[Obsidian CLI REST MCP plugin for Obsidian]] is a new plugin I've been working on. It's now the gateway between my AI agent and my knowledge base. I built this plugin to solve a specific problem: how do you give AI agents running remotely (especially [[OpenClaw]]) structured access to your Obsidian vault without compromising security or control? It exposes ALL the features of the [[Obsidian CLI]], which currently only supports being used next to a running [[Obsidian]] instance, in different ways: - **[[Model Context Protocol (MCP)]] server** following Cloudflare's recommended pattern - **Controlled vault access** for AI agents and external tools (super efficient token-wise) - **RESTful API** with full OpenAPI documentation It basically enables leveraging all the [[Obsidian CLI]] features remotely. Thanks to this, my [[OpenClaw]] agent can - Analyze/understand the vault structure - Suggest organizational improvements - Manipulate notes - Execute complex queries across your knowledge base. In particular, query [[Obsidian Bases]] - Explore/understand/update tags - Execute commands - List tags, orphaned notes, ... - Develop plugins - Access debugging tools - ... I've been running experiments all week, and the results are genuinely impressive. It's like giving [[AI Agents]] X-ray vision into your vault with surgical precision. Most people treat their knowledge base as a static archive. With the [[Obsidian CLI]], whether it's being used locally by [[Claude Code]] or whatever, or remotely through this plugin, it becomes a **living system** that AI can read, understand, and improve. No more copy-pasting content into chat interfaces. No more losing context between sessions. Just seamless integration. And it goes far beyond "just" being able to manipulate the Markdown files. For instance, I can send voice messages to my AI Agent via WhatsApp or Discord, which get transcribed using the [[Knowii Voice AI]] CLI. Based on that, the agent can interact with my running Obsidian instance, create notes, open those, append content, etc. Anything I can do myself manually, AI can do for me. It's VERY powerful. If you're using [[Claude Code]], [[OpenClaw]] or similar tools and building AI workflows, this is worth exploring. The plugin is still early, but it's pretty cool. - Source code: https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-cli-rest - Documentation: https://developassion.gitbook.io/obsidian-cli-rest-mcp ### CRM in Obsidian: Business Data Meets Knowledge Management I've been tracking my business data in various tools for years: Gumroad for sales, spreadsheets for customers, random notes for context. It was fragmented, hard to query, and impossible to connect with the rest of my knowledge system. So I decided I **imported all my customer and sales data into Obsidian**. Now I have: - **Person notes for every customer** with purchase history, interaction context, and linked conversations - **Product notes** showing who bought what, when, and at what price point - **Sales analytics** powered by [[Obsidian Bases]] - **Segment tracking** with tags and properties - **Automatic insights** from my agent analyzing patterns, trends, issues, etc ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter 208 - Claws - CRM in Obsidian.png|CRM built inside Obsidian showing customer records, products, and order totals]] Thanks to this, I can now ask questions like: - "Who are my top 10 customers by lifetime value?" - "Which products are most popular in Germany?" - "Show me everyone who bought the Obsidian Starter Kit in Q4 2025" And I get instant answers, with full context, linked to my existing notes about those people, products, and conversations. Your CRM shouldn't be separate from your knowledge management system. Your customers, your products, your conversations; they're all knowledge. When you integrate them into your vault, you unlock connections and insights that siloed tools can't provide. I'm planning a detailed write-up on this setup. It's too good not to share. ### Time Machine Plugin: Version Control for Notes Speaking of new plugins, I released a first version of the [[Time Machine plugin for Obsidian]] this week. **The problem it solves:** Obsidian has a little known, but awesome [[Obsidian File Recovery|file recovery]] feature. It automatically saves snapshots of your notes over time. The problem is that the UI/UX of that core plugin is far from great. You can't easily browse historical versions, compare changes, or restore specific sections. If you're managing a large vault with constant updates, you need better version control. This plugin leverages the file recovery data (i.e., all the snapshots it creates when properly configured) and exposes those via a simple view in Obsidian, which you can pin to a side panel. Whenever a note is opened, the view adjust, and shows all the available snapshots for that note in a timeline. And it enables looking at the differences, restoring previous versions, and even restoring hunks of those previous versions (i.e., smaller sets of changes). In addition, this plugin also supports Git, and combines both the file recovery snapshots and the git commit history for the current file in a single timeline, making it really easy to see the full history of your notes. ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter 208 - Claws - time machine plugin.png|File Recovery diff view: added lines in green, removed lines in red]] This plugin also shows the exact differences between each snapshot and the current note. The goal of this plugin is NOT to take care of maintaining the history, but to enable easy recovery. If you've ever lost a paragraph you wrote last week and wished you could just go back in time to grab it, this is for you. I've already used it a few times to recover content I accidentally deleted. It paid for itself (in saved time and frustration) within the first week. - Source code: https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-time-machine - Documentation: https://developassion.gitbook.io/obsidian-time-machine/ ### Bookshelf plugin for Obsidian I've also created a little prototype (that works great) to render collections of books in Obsidian as a bookshelf. It's called the [[Bookshelf plugin for Obsidian]]: ![[Bookshelf plugin for Obsidian - cover.png|Bookshelf plugin displays the user's reading list as a visual grid of book covers]] Source code: https://github.com/dsebastien/obsidian-bookshelf ### Typefully Plugin News I'm also working on v3 of the [[Typefully plugin for Obsidian]]. My goal is to add full support for [[Typefully]] within Obsidian. It already works great, but I want to add image uploading support, tag management, and more! ### Concepts Website Progress This week, during my train ride, I've added a cool graph view to the [Concepts website](https://concepts.dsebastien.net): ![[DeveloPassion's Newsletter 208 - Claws - concepts graph view.png|Concepts website graph view: 3,300+ ideas linked as an interactive knowledge network]] ![[2026-02-20 - concepts website graph view.png|Searching 'atomic notes' inside the Concepts graph narrows to a focused cluster]] There are now 2.8K concepts in there! **Go explore new ideas!** LINK: https://concepts.dsebastien.net/explore/ ### Random - My little [Obsidian graph Reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1qxegz8/graph_view_of_my_15k_notes/) ended up reaching 137K views, 1.2K upvotes, 116 comments - I used [[LangExtract]] on a set of interviews to extract qualitative data for a friend. And she told me I saved her weeks of work. That was a fun experiment; [[LangGraph]] is REALLY impressive! - I started publishing YouTube shorts on my channel: https://www.youtube.com/@dsebastien. More to come! - The [[Knowii Community]] has reached ~$500 MRR! ❤️🎉 ## When AI Stops Advising and Starts Working These four projects, [[OpenClaw]], [[Obsidian CLI REST MCP plugin for Obsidian]], my new CRM system, and [[Time Machine plugin for Obsidian]] aren't separate experiments. They're parts of a larger shift I'm experimenting with in how I work. For years, AI tools have been **advisors**. You ask a question, you get an answer. You ask for a draft, you get a draft. But the actual *work*; the execution, the iteration, the integration etc still fell on you. That's changing. With [[Agentic Knowledge Management (AKM)]], AI agents don't just advise. They **operate**. They analyze, create, connect, improve, and act on your knowledge system autonomously. And when you give them the right tools, they become much more capable operational partners. > [[Digital twin|Digital twins]] are now within reach when combining frontier AI models with frontier Knowledge Management practice! The "Claws" aren't about control or dominance. They're about **grip**; the ability to actually hold onto and manipulate the work, not just observe it. If you're a solo creator, knowledge worker, or anyone managing complex information, this shift is worth paying attention to. The tools are here. The frameworks exist. The only question is whether you're building the knowledge systems that can support them. Consider that the pace of AI evolution keeps accelerating. The sooner you build a solid knowledge management practice, the more leverage you'll get. ## Knowii News The [Knowii Community](https://www.store.dsebastien.net//knowii-community) continues growing steadily. We're now at **385+ members** 🎉 **Thank you to everyone who's joined**. Whether you're a Knowledge Explorer just starting out, a Knowledge Builder refining your systems, or a Knowledge Master helping others; you make this community what it is ❤️ **Upcoming Workshops:** I'm preparing a series of workshops on **AI + Obsidian integration**, with a focus on Claude Desktop, [[Claude Code]] and practical workflows you can implement immediately. These aren't developer-only sessions. More details coming soon. We're also discussing really cool stuff around AI evolutions, how to best combine AI and [[Knowledge Management (KM)]], and a ton more! If you're not in the community yet, now's a great time to join. **Join the Knowii Community**: LINK: https://www.store.dsebastien.net//product/knowii-community ## Weekly Challenge This week's challenge is about **connecting the dots**. Pick one tool you use daily (could be your task manager, your calendar, your social media scheduler, your analytics platform). Now ask yourself: - What if this tool had full context about your knowledge base? - What questions could it answer that it can't right now? - What work could it do autonomously instead of requiring your constant input? You don't need to build anything. Just imagine the possibilities. Awareness of the gap between "tool" and "system" is the first step toward closing it. ## Latest Articles ### Must-Have Obsidian Plugins for 2026 An updated guide to the essential plugins that make Obsidian truly powerful. I revisit my recommendations every year, and 2026 brought some surprises. 👉 Read it: [[Must Have Obsidian Plugins for 2026 (Article)]] ### How to Self-Host OpenClaw Securely on a VPS The complete security-focused guide to setting up your own AI agent on a VPS. Covers [[Tailscale]], firewalls, SSH hardening, and the [[Least Privilege Principle]]. 👉 Read it: [[How to Self-Host OpenClaw Securely on a VPS (Article)]] ### How to Give Your AI Agent Access to Your Chrome Browser (And Why You Should Be Scared) Watching your AI agent control your Web browser is something that feels magical. It's also both very powerful and very risky. Here's how you can do it in a safe and controlled way. 👉 Read it: [[How to Connect OpenClaw to Chrome via Tailscale (Article)]] ### Typefully Plugin for Obsidian v2 Announcement of the complete rewrite, now using the v2 API and [[Bun]] for builds. If you manage social media from Obsidian, this makes your life easier. 👉 Read it: [[Typefully plugin for Obsidian v2 (Article)]] ## Quotes of the Week > [[A vision is like a dream. It will disappear unless we do something with it]] > [[People need to write more to think more clearly. But many think about it the other way around]] > [[Make mistakes, just don't make them permanent]] > [[The people who succeed are irrationally passionate about something]] > [[You make your own luck if you stay at it long enough]] ## New & Interesting Links **PKM / Thinking / Learning** - [[OpenClaw]] setup with Obsidian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdZUNwUwHIs - [[Claude Code]] + Obsidian = game over for many other PKM apps: https://www.youtube.com/live/UrRoa_J0yDQ - [[Obsidian Bases]] documentation updates - [[qmd]] semantic search improvements - Future of KM apps: https://x.com/evielync/status/2018816191155024183 - Really interesting specification that I'm adding support for in the [[Obsidian Starter Kit]]: https://mdbase.dev - Obsidian and daily notes: https://medium.com/a-voice-in-the-conversation/obsidians-glue-daily-notes-4e8b9c8fa3c6 - TaskNote now includes an MCP server, enabling AI agents to interact with Obsidian tasks programmatically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8wgmWJHqpg - Obsidian is awesome for people with ADHD: https://www.xda-developers.com/i-finally-started-using-obsidian-and-i-regret-waiting-this-long/ - Claudian: https://blog.wenhaofree.com/en/posts/articles/obsidian-claudian-integration-guide/ - Book note taking workflow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UykMn0rHQvg - Content maps with bases: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o74ChaKxp8g - [[Eleanor Konik]] on Obsidian + Claude code: https://www.eleanorkonik.com/p/claude-obsidian-got-a-level-up **AI** - AI doesn't reduce work; it intensifies it: https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it - https://steve-yegge.medium.com/the-ai-vampire-eda6e4f07163 - Be careful with skills: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2otN_NY75Y - Built-in git worktree support in [[Claude Code]]: https://x.com/bcherny/status/2025007393290272904 - Silicon AI: https://taalas.com/products/ - [[Model Context Protocol (MCP)]] - Cloudflare's implementation pattern: https://blog.cloudflare.com/code-mode-mcp/ - Learn RAG from scratch: https://github.com/langchain-ai/rag-from-scratch - Project Genie by Google: https://x.com/demishassabis/status/2016925155277361423. Playgrounds in Claude Code: https://x.com/trq212/status/2017024445244924382 - You can now integrate [[LM Studio]] with [[Claude Code]]: https://lmstudio.ai/blog/claudecode - [[Lethal Trifecta for AI Agents]] - [[Prompt injection]] - [[BMad Method]] - [[Claude in Chrome]] - [[AI Coding Maturity Levels]] **Tools** - [[NanoClaw]] - Little claws everywhere - [[LangExtract]] - Powerful tool to extract structured information from unstructured text with source grounding - [[Cryptomator]] - encrypted cloud storage - [[GitButler]] - virtual branches for Git - [[Cal.com]] - open source scheduling - [[TMux]] - Supercharge your terminal usage. Related: [[Termux]] - [[ebook2audiobook]] - Convert ebooks to audiobooks - [[VoiceBox]] - Clone your voice for free **Obsidian Plugins** - [[Time Machine plugin for Obsidian]] - version control - [[Obsidian CLI REST MCP plugin for Obsidian]] - MCP integration - [[Bookshelf plugin for Obsidian]] - reading list management **Wow** - https://www.humanconsumption.live ## About the Author Hey there! I'm [[Sébastien Dubois]], Knowledge Management coach, author, and founder of DeveloPassion. I'm on a mission to help you escape information overload, organize yourself, your work, and better leverage AI. Find me at [dsebastien.net](https://dsebastien.net) | Follow me on [X](https://x.com/dSebastien) | Join me on [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/dsebastien.bsky.social) ## Ready to get to the next level? If you're tired of information overload and ready to build a reliable knowledge system: 🎯 **Join Knowii** — Get access to the complete knowledge transformation ecosystem: https://www.store.dsebastien.net/product/knowii-community/ 📚 **Take the Course** — Master Knowledge Management fundamentals: https://knowledge-management-for-beginners.com 🔥 **Transform your Knowledge Management**: https://obsidianstarterkit.com 🎙️ **Type at the Speed of Thought**: https://voice-ai.knowii.net 🛒 **Explore my products and courses**: https://www.store.dsebastien.net 🎁 **Grab Free Resources** — Start with the Knowledge System Checklist: https://www.dsebastien.net/free-knowledge-management-system-checklist/ and explore new ideas: https://concepts.dsebastien.net 💬 **Get Personal Coaching** — Work with me 1-on-1: https://www.store.dsebastien.net//product/pkm-coaching Everything at https://dsebastien.net ✨ ## Promotion Edition 208 of my newsletter is here: Claws 🤖 When AI gets its claws into everything: 🤖 dpMaster evolved from tool to operational partner 🔌 Obsidian CLI REST MCP bridges vault and AI 📊 Complete CRM built inside Obsidian ⏰ Time Machine plugin for note version control AI agents don't just advise anymore. They operate. They analyze, create, connect, and act on your knowledge system autonomously. This is Agentic Knowledge Management (AKM) in practice. Read the full edition: https://www.dsebastien.net/developassions-newsletter-208-claws 📬 Join 6000+ readers: https://www.dsebastien.net/newsletter/ 🎯 Join the community: https://www.store.dsebastien.net//product/knowii-community --- That's it for today! ✨ LINK: - [[How I Use AI With My Obsidian Vault Every Day - 16 Practical Use Cases (Article)]] - https://www.dsebastien.net/how-i-use-ai-with-my-obsidian-vault-every-day-16-practical-use-cases//