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ZettelFlow

Draw your note workflow on a Canvas once — then think with every note it makes.

Get started See it in action

Why ZettelFlow? · FAQ

How ZettelFlow works, in one continuous shot: a Canvas flow is walked step by step while the wizard it drives builds the note, and the note lands in your graph, already linked.

Most plugins help you write. ZettelFlow helps you think. It turns a native Obsidian Canvas into a guided note-creation wizard, then sits beside every note it makes: where the note stands, what argues with it, what it is missing, and the one next step. Offline, AI optional, and nothing is written to your vault that you did not decide.

New here? The README is the front door — it opens with the handful of things ZettelFlow asks you to do. This site is the map.

What you get

  • This note, docked in the right sidebar

    This note, beside every note

    Where the note stands, four plain counts, what argues with it, and the one next step — finished in place.

    This note

  • A guided Cultivate session on one idea

    Cultivate an idea

    A guided thinking session: connect, challenge, question, advance — one real move at a time.

    Cultivate

  • Explore answering a question: the answer glows in the graph

    Ask, and the graph answers

    Ask in your own words; the answer glows in your graph, and a card says how it was found.

    Explore your graph

  • The Reader: a chapter of a reading path

    Read your notes like a book

    A path through a note and its neighbours, chapter by chapter — highlights into Think that come back for a second look, and an end you can save or export.

    The Reader

  • The Library: your PDFs, EPUBs, articles and saved reading paths on shelves, with a desk for what you are reading

    Your library

    The PDFs and EPUBs in your vault and your saved paths, on one shelf — with what came of each one.

    Your library

  • A Base dashboard with stats, a bubble chart, tasks and a calendar

    Dashboards for your vault

    Chart any Obsidian Base — a local Grafana with no dataviewjs.

    Base dashboards

  • A system's card opens in place, is walked on its own drawing, and becomes the canvas

    Community: learn it, install a system

    A tutorial for every feature, and Zettelkasten, PARA, GTD, research, writing — tried first, installed in one click.

    Community

Ways in

Install ZettelFlow from Settings → Community plugins. The ZettelFlow ribbon button opens a menu; every way in starts there.

  1. Ribbon menu → Create note.
  2. While no canvas creates notes, press Create the example flow.
  3. Create note again, and walk the flow it made.

→ Get started

  1. Ribbon menu → Community.
  2. Open Systems and pick one — each card draws its flow — then Try it: walk the flow.
  3. Install: the tab becomes the canvas, and the notice offers Create a note and Undo.

→ Community

  1. Right-click a canvas → Use this canvas to create notes → Give it the role.
  2. Open it → Create the first step. The first step starts the flow on its own.
  3. Select it → Edit step → Add an action → Ask for text.
  4. Ribbon menu → Create note.

Your first flow, from an empty canvas to a note

→ Get started · Actions · Conditional edges

No setup, no Canvas, no AI.

  1. Ribbon menu → Cultivate — start a thinking session → From a question of mine…
  2. State your question, look at what your vault already says, and write a provisional response.

→ Cultivate and purpose-led work

How it works

Design the flow on a Canvas, configure each step's actions, run the wizard for every new note

Concept What it is
Canvas A native Obsidian .canvas file: each node is a step, arrows set the order.
Step A note on the canvas with a target folder, a body template and actions.
Action An interactive part of the wizard — prompt, calendar, selector, tags, script…
Conditional edge An arrow labelled if: <expression> that is skipped when false.

The map — where each area lives

For the complete, ranked list of every capability, see Everything it does.

Resources