🌱 digital garden tools

created 4 min read

🌱 what this is

a working inventory of the tools, systems, and little mechanical vines that make this digital garden exist.

this page is for the practical side of the garden: where it lives, how it gets built, how it gets deployed, and which tools help keep the whole thing from turning into wet spaghetti.

🧱 core stack

writing / source

  • obsidian
    • where the notes live
    • source material for the garden
    • used for maps, daily notes, system notes, archives, and connected thinking

publishing

  • quartz
    • turns the obsidian vault into a browsable website
    • handles pages, links, backlinks, graph, explorer, tags, and layout pieces

hosting

  • dreamhost
    • hosting for the published site
    • server destination for the quartz build output

domain

  • chaos.poutine.life
    • public home for the garden

🗂️ local structure

obsidian vault

local obsidian vault / digital garden

quartz project

local quartz project folder

quartz content symlink

content -> local obsidian vault / digital garden

🚀 build / deploy tools

quartz build

npx quartz build

use this to generate the static site.

deploy script

./deploy.sh

used to send the built site to dreamhost.

watch deploy

uses chokidar to watch the obsidian vault / quartz content and deploy changes automatically.

rough idea:

chokidar "content/**/*" -c "./deploy.sh"

🔐 server access

ssh

used to connect to dreamhost and deploy without the browser circus.

ssh key

ed25519 key preferred so deploys do not require repeated password prompts.

rsync

used by the deploy script to copy built files to the server efficiently.

🎨 styling / theme tools

custom scss

quartz/styles/custom.scss

used for:

  • explorer styling
  • sidebar spacing
  • backlink layout
  • tag styling
  • logo behavior
  • mobile cleanup
  • removing unwanted internal scrollbars
  • typography tweaks

custom components

used or considered for:

  • custom logo
  • custom footer
  • page title behavior
  • explorer title display
  • layout adjustments

🧭 navigation pieces

garden navigation depends on:

  • homepage / root index
  • map pages
  • explorer
  • tags
  • backlinks
  • graph
  • footer links
  • intentional internal links

important map-style pages:

🪧 frontmatter system

common fields:

title:
type:
kind:
status:
gravity:
created:
updated:
garden_area:
garden_stage:
garden_intent:
chaos_flavor:
tags:

this helps pages sort themselves into rough mental baskets instead of becoming a drawer full of unlabeled cables.

🧪 garden workflow

create

  • write note in obsidian
  • use web-safe filename
  • add simple frontmatter
  • link to related map or note

connect

  • add backlinks
  • add to map pages when useful
  • keep related links in markdown, not overloaded yaml

publish

  • save note
  • build locally
  • deploy to dreamhost
  • check public page

polish

  • fix layout weirdness
  • adjust scss
  • test desktop and mobile
  • keep the page readable first, fancy second

🧰 useful commands

build site

cd local-quartz-project-folder
npx quartz build

serve locally

cd local-quartz-project-folder
npx quartz build --serve

deploy

cd local-quartz-project-folder
./deploy.sh

search for words in garden

grep -RniE "word|another-word" .

find problem terms

grep -RniE "placeholder|broken|todo|fixme" .

⚠️ known weirdness / watch list

  • quartz may warn about not finding a git repository for content
  • deploy may sometimes discard files during rsync verification, then work on retry
  • explorer styling can be oddly specific because folders may use buttons instead of plain links
  • mobile logo behavior needs checking after logo or css changes
  • sidebar scrollbars can appear if containers get too constrained
  • some css changes may need cache clearing or rebuild before they show

✅ garden rules

  • lowercase filenames
  • kebab-case filenames
  • no spaces in filenames
  • expressive titles inside notes are okay
  • avoid overstuffed yaml
  • use markdown backlinks for relationships when possible
  • do not delete useful notes just because they are messy
  • move old stuff to archive or compost
  • make pages useful before making them perfect

🧩 possible improvements

  • cleaner deploy notes
  • stronger backup routine
  • dashboard for recently updated notes
  • better page templates
  • polished custom footer
  • random post footer link
  • mobile sidebar review
  • better image gallery handling
  • dedicated prompt archive structure
  • affiliate disclosure location check

♿️ ada consideration for later

meaningful image

![screenshot of the Chaos Garden homepage showing the left navigation and graph panel](../_meta/assets/chaos-garden-homepage.png)

decorative image

![](../attachments/divider-flourish.png)

🧭 connections

🧺 loose scraps

  • tiny static-site greenhouse
  • obsidian is the soil
  • quartz is the trellis
  • dreamhost is the dirt lot with plumbing
  • scss is where visual weeds get trimmed
  • deploy scripts are little conveyor belts for thoughts

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