Obsidian is BLOAT! Batter Up

When you move from building a static knowledge base to running an active, agentic workflow, something interesting happens.

Jake's method proves once again you don't need bloated apps and proprietary solutions to get results.

In this approach, you don’t need a specialized app to manage your AI. The folder system itself becomes the agent architecture and the user interface.

Here’s how it plays out in practice.

The Filesystem Is the Orchestrator

In advanced agentic workflows, you are not just storing notes. You are running multi-step production pipelines — turning a script into animation, video creation pipelines, or handling complex sequences.

Jake’s ICM handles this with the basic operating system filesystem. Numbered folders manage stage sequencing. Folder hierarchy controls context scoping so the AI only sees exactly what it needs. The output of one folder flows naturally into the next as input.

Because the folder structure already organizes the logic, routing, and execution, adding Obsidian creates a redundant interface layer on top of a system that is already complete. As Jake puts it, what is simpler than a folder.

VS Code Gives You a Leaner Setup

For directing these workflows, many move to Visual Studio Code paired with Claude Code. VS Code shows you the raw folder tree and gives direct terminal access without extra layers.

Obsidian is built as a personal knowledge management tool with a visual, plugin-heavy interface. When your setup is busy running Python scripts, scheduled checks, and processing files, a lightweight developer environment fits the factory floor better than a note-taking app.

Plain Text Keeps Everything Clean

A key principle here is plain text as the interface. Any tool that can read a text file should be able to participate without proprietary formats or hidden databases.

Obsidian can alter how your files work by adding its own metadata and formatting requirements. Staying purely in local folders keeps the entire workflow transparent, untouched, and fully portable.

Orchestration Moves Beyond the Wiki

Obsidian shines at linking static notes and showing connections in a wiki style. That works well for reference material.

But once your workflows turn into dynamic teams of specialized agents performing real tasks — generating code, scanning documents, running accounting, or evaluating APIs — the needs change. The graph view and linking features become overkill for managing a production pipeline.

You can build lightweight custom dashboards or web UIs (use Vercel, it's cheap) when visualization is actually needed, instead of forcing a note-taking app to run the show.

When you treat your folders as the application, markdown becomes the programming language and the filesystem becomes the framework. ****Adding Obsidian on top simply introduces an unnecessary middleman.****

You stop managing tools and start directing the work that matters.

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