Graphify + Obsidian is INSANE: Build an AI Second Brain That Never Forgets — Transcript

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1. 0:00This is an AI second brain that never
2. 0:02forgets. Point it at a folder and your
3. 0:04whole project turns into a graph your
4. 0:06assistant can query because right now
5. 0:08your coding assistant has amnesia. Every
6. 0:10new chat it has read nothing. Ask it how
7. 0:13your login flow works and it opens every
8. 0:15file from scratch to figure it out. Do
9. 0:18that across 200 files on every single
10. 0:20question and you pay a token tax each
11. 0:22time. And stuffing your entire repo into
12. 0:24a giant context window just makes the
13. 0:26answers worse. On April 3rd, Andre
14. 0:29Carpathy posted a fix and the dev world
15. 0:31copied it in a single weekend. Stop
16. 0:34making the model rebuild your knowledge
17. 0:35every query. Give it a wiki it keeps up
18. 0:38to date itself. 2 days later, a
19. 0:40developer shipped exactly that as a tool
20. 0:42called Graphify. From nothing, it blew
21. 0:44past 90,000 GitHub stars in about 3
22. 0:47months. Pair it with Obsidian, and that
23. 0:49graph becomes plain Markdown you own.
24. 0:51So, here's the full picture. How
25. 0:53graphify builds the graph, why Obsidian
26. 0:56is its home, and the four ways it falls
27. 0:58apart if you get lazy. And this was not
28. 1:00some quiet launch. It turned into a
29. 1:02genuine wave. That claude code plus
30. 1:05Obsidian idea pulled over 50,000 likes
31. 1:07on X in a single week. One post
32. 1:09declaring notetaking dead hit 54,000 on
33. 1:12its own. Carpathy's little gist alone
34. 1:15picked up 14,000 stars and,900 forks.
35. 1:18First, the actual problem Graphify is
36. 1:20solving. The usual fix for a big code
37. 1:23base is what's called rag. Chop your
38. 1:25files into chunks, turn them into
39. 1:26vectors, and search for the closest
40. 1:28matches when you ask a question. That
41. 1:30works great for pros. For code, it's
42. 1:32shaky because the link between a
43. 1:34function and the things that call it
44. 1:36isn't about similar words. It lives in
45. 1:38the call graph. You end up paying to
46. 1:40load the whole library just to find one
47. 1:42paragraph. Graphify flips that around.
48. 1:44Instead of searching text on every
49. 1:46question, it does the expensive reading
50. 1:48once up front and squeezes your project
51. 1:50into an explicit graph of entities and
52. 1:53the relationships between them. After
53. 1:55that, answering a question means walking
54. 1:57the graph instead of rereading the
55. 1:58files. It's exactly how a senior
56. 2:00engineer works. Build the mental map
57. 2:02once, then just follow it. And it isn't
58. 2:05only code. Graphify pulls in your SQL
59. 2:07schemas, your shell scripts, your R
60. 2:10notebooks, your architecture PDFs, even
61. 2:12recorded videos, and drops them into one
62. 2:15graph. Application code, database
63. 2:17schema, and infrastructure finally
64. 2:19living on the same map instead of in
65. 2:21five different heads. Actually using it
66. 2:23is almost boring in the best way. Inside
67. 2:26cloud code or codeex or cursor, you type
68. 2:29/graphify and point it at a directory.
69. 2:32It grinds through the folder and drops a
70. 2:34graphify out folder right next to your
71. 2:36code with the entire graph saved to
72. 2:38disk. It supports every big assistant,
73. 2:40not just one. Here's the part one
74. 2:42genuinely respect. Graphify does not
75. 2:45treat every file the same way. It runs
76. 2:47three separate passes over your stuff
77. 2:49and each one has a completely different
78. 2:51story about where your data ends up.
79. 2:53Pass one is your source code. Graphy
80. 2:55runs it through tree sitter, the same
81. 2:57kind of parser a compiler uses across 40
82. 2:59languages. It's deterministic. There's
83. 3:02no AI model involved and there's no
84. 3:04network call. Your code stays on your
85. 3:06machine and every link it finds gets
86. 3:08tagged as a hard fact. Pass two is for
87. 3:11recordings. Point it at a folder with
88. 3:13audio or video, say a design meeting you
89. 3:15screen recorded, and it transcribes them
90. 3:17locally with faster whisper. An hour of
91. 3:20talking becomes text right on your
92. 3:21laptop and folds into the graph. Nothing
93. 3:24gets uploaded. Pass 3 is the honest one.
94. 3:27Documents and images, a PDF spec, or a
95. 3:30photo of a whiteboard can't be read by a
96. 3:32grammar. So, those get sent to your AI
97. 3:34provider to be understood. That's the
98. 3:36only pass that leaves your machine, and
99. 3:38it goes to your own API key, not some
100. 3:40middleman. Want it fully private? Run
101. 3:43code only mode and skip this pass. And
102. 3:45it refuses to sound sure about things it
103. 3:47isn't. Every connection in the graph
104. 3:49carries a label. Extracted means it's
105. 3:51right there in your code, so trust it.
106. 3:53Inferred means the model reasoned it
107. 3:55from context. So probably ambiguous
108. 3:58means the model itself raised a hand. So
109. 4:00check before you build on it. Once the
110. 4:02graph exists, it organizes itself.
111. 4:05Graphify runs community detection and
112. 4:07your modules just fall out of the shape
113. 4:09of the code. O in one cluster, billing
114. 4:11in another, infrastructure off on its
115. 4:14own with the bridge files between them
116. 4:15lit up. You didn't draw that map. The
117. 4:18relationships did. Now the payoff at
118. 4:20query time. You ask, "How does a user
119. 4:23log in?" Instead of loading 50 files,
120. 4:25Graphify walks the graph and hands back
121. 4:28a short path. Three hops, zero files
122. 4:30opened. Your assistant reads a few node
123. 4:32summaries instead of half the repo. And
124. 4:34querying isn't just one trick. Graphify
125. 4:37explain hands you a plain English tour
126. 4:39of any entity. Graphy path finds the
127. 4:42shortest chain between two things, say
128. 4:43auster and the database pool it secretly
129. 4:46leans on. and deep mode goes hunting for
130. 4:48the fuzzier inferred links a quick pass
131. 4:50would skip right over. Graphy puts a
132. 4:53number on all this about 71 times fewer
133. 4:55tokens per query on a mixed codebase.
134. 4:58Now that's their own benchmark on their
135. 5:00own data and nobody outside has
136. 5:01reproduced it yet. So take the exact
137. 5:03figure with a grain of salt, but the
138. 5:05direction is obviously right. Walking a
139. 5:08map is cheaper than rereading the whole
140. 5:09library every time. And that one graph
141. 5:12isn't trapped inside the tool. Graphy
142. 5:14exports it every way you'd want. a
143. 5:16clickable HTML graph rendered with viz.s
144. 5:19s plain JSON for scripts, a markdown
145. 5:22report of your busiest files, a Neo4j
146. 5:24database, even an MCP server, so any
147. 5:27agent can call your codebase graph like
148. 5:29a built-in tool. It also stays current
149. 5:32without you babysitting it. Every file
150. 5:34gets a chat 256 hash, so the second run
151. 5:37only rereads what actually changed. Add
152. 5:39a git hook and the graph rebuilds itself
153. 5:42on every commit. Your assistant sees a
154. 5:44map that matches the exact branch you're
155. 5:46standing on. So, where does Obsidian
156. 5:48fit? Obsidian is a notes app built on
157. 5:51plain markdown files that live on your
158. 5:53disc, not on someone's server. Around 1
159. 5:56and a.5 million people use it, and its
160. 5:58plugins just crossed 100 million
161. 5:59downloads. It's the natural home for a
162. 6:01brain you actually want to own. Point
163. 6:03Graphifies Obsidian export at a vault,
164. 6:06and your graph turns into real notes.
165. 6:08Every entity becomes a page. Every
166. 6:10relationship becomes a Wiklink. And
167. 6:12Obsidian's graph view shows the whole
168. 6:14thing as a web. You can wander through
169. 6:16your codebase as a mind map. You can
170. 6:18open on a Sunday. Then you close the
171. 6:20loop with a plugin like Claudian, which
172. 6:22drops Claude code straight into the
173. 6:23Obsidian sidebar. Your vault becomes the
174. 6:25agents working directory. It can read
175. 6:27your notes, write new ones, and run
176. 6:29commands without leaving the app your
177. 6:31knowledge already lives in. And Graphify
178. 6:33isn't the only door in. You don't have
179. 6:36to hand over full write access on day
180. 6:38one. Smart connections just surfaces
181. 6:40related notes using embeddings. Cudge is
182. 6:43the self-hosted run it all locally
183. 6:44option. Copilot for Obsidian gives you
184. 6:47vault aare chat and is already past
185. 6:49100,000 users. Start light then give it
186. 6:52more rope. Underneath all of this sits
187. 6:54Carpathy's actual design and it's
188. 6:56refreshingly simple. Three layers. A raw
189. 6:59folder of sources the AI leaves
190. 7:01untouched. A wiki layer the AI does own
191. 7:04where it writes pages and keeps the
192. 7:05cross links honest. And a schema file
193. 7:08that tells the model how your wiki is
194. 7:09laid out. Three operations keep that
195. 7:11wiki alive. Ingest pulls in new sources
196. 7:14and updates every page they touch. Query
197. 7:17searches the wiki and answers you with
198. 7:18citations. And lint runs a health check
199. 7:20for contradictions, dead pages, and
200. 7:23stale claims. Remember that word lint.
201. 7:25It comes back to bite people. And what
202. 7:27gets me is how old this idea actually
203. 7:30is. Carpathy traces it back to 1945 to
204. 7:33Vanavar Bush's memes. The dream of link
205. 7:35trails between your documents. The links
206. 7:37mattered as much as the pages
207. 7:39themselves. We just lacked a tool
208. 7:40patient enough to maintain them. Now the
209. 7:43model does that upkeep for free. Okay,
210. 7:45I've talked this up for 5 minutes, so
211. 7:47let me be the annoying person in the
212. 7:49comments for a second. The viral demos
213. 7:51leave out the part where this whole
214. 7:52thing rots if you ignore it. There are
215. 7:54four cracks worth knowing about. Crack
216. 7:56one is size. A vault with 50 tidy notes
217. 8:00feels like actual magic. A vault with
218. 8:022,000 notes turns into a search problem
219. 8:04all over again because the model spends
220. 8:06its context just navigating your
221. 8:08structure instead of answering your
222. 8:10question. The graph softens that. It
223. 8:12doesn't erase it. Crack 2 is confident
224. 8:15fiction. When the assistant writes up
225. 8:16your notes, it cheerfully fills the gaps
226. 8:19with things you never said in your own
227. 8:20voice. The fix is a blunt line in your
228. 8:23instructions. Do not add anything I
229. 8:25didn't write. Without that rule, your
230. 8:27second brain starts inventing memories.
231. 8:29Crack three is feedback loops. The AI
232. 8:32writes a page, then weeks later cites
233. 8:34its own page as a source, then builds on
234. 8:36top of that. Let it run unattended and
235. 8:38you get AI quoting AI where small
236. 8:40mistakes slowly harden into facts. Your
237. 8:43brain fills up with its own echo. Crack
238. 8:454 is the big one, and it's why that word
239. 8:47lint mattered. Carpathy built a cleanup
240. 8:50pass into the design on purpose, and
241. 8:52almost every tutorial skips it. 5
242. 8:54minutes a week, read what the agent
243. 8:56wrote, prune the stale pages, kill the
244. 8:58contradictions. Skip that and the whole
245. 9:01thing decays into noise. Do it and it
246. 9:03compounds into something real. So, my
247. 9:06honest take, a second brain that never
248. 9:08forgets is genuinely here and it's the
249. 9:10best version we've had. But that memory
250. 9:12cuts both ways. It also keeps every bad
251. 9:15note and lazy guess unless you clean up
252. 9:17after it. Own your markdown, keep it on
253. 9:19your disc, and treat that weekly lint
254. 9:21pass as the rent. And if you do one
255. 9:23thing this week, start almost
256. 9:25embarrassingly small. One folder, one
257. 9:27graph, one vault. Let it earn your trust
258. 9:30on a project you already understand
259. 9:32before you feed it your entire life. The
260. 9:34people who win with this aren't the ones
261. 9:35with the sickest demo. They're the ones
262. 9:37whose vault still tells the truth 3
263. 9:39months from now. That's the whole build.
264. 9:42A brain that finally keeps up with you.
265. 9:44See you in the next one.