Multi Vault Support

Goals

Users should be able to create multiple vaults for a given workspace. Each vault is a folder that can contain any number of hierarchies.

Use Cases

• for sensitive notes, multi-vault enables local only vaults vs vaults that can are synced on file sharing services like dropbox
• for modularizing knowledge, multi-vault enables users to mix and match existing vaults depending on context
• for federating and curating knowledge, multi-vault enables users to publish/subscribe to public vaults using protocols like git
• for access control, multi-vault lets users configure specific vaults to be private which turns off publication and sharing of any notes inside said vault

Concepts

Specs

• a workspace can have one or more vaults
• a workspace can have one or more workspace configs
• vaults have a path relative to the workspace and an optional name

Flow

Initialization

To facilitate separation and re-usability of vaults, we are changing how the initial workspace is laid out in Dendron.

Today, all files (configuration, vaults, docs) are located directly inside the workspace root.

.
└── Dendron
    ├── .git
    ├── dendron.code-workspace
    ├── dendron.yml
    ├── docs 
    ├── pods
    ├── vault1
    │   ├── foo.md
    │   └── foo.two.md
    └── vault2
        ├── foo.md
        └── foo.one.md

With multivault, workspace configuration will be moved underneath a separate folder underneath the configuration root. By default, this will inside a folder named config.

.
└── Dendron
    |── .git
    |── dendron.code-workspace
    |── dendron.yml
    |── pods
    |── docs
    ├── vault1
    │   |── .git
    │   ├── foo.md
    │   └── foo.two.md
    └── vault2
        |── .git
        ├── foo.md
        └── foo.one.md

Inside a multi-vault workspace, each vault and config will be initialized as separate and independent git repositories. To initialize a multi-vault workspace, you can run Dendorn: Initialize MultiVault Workspace to bootstrap the folder layout that you see above.

We will also be releasing a migration script that can convert a single vault workspace into a multi-vault workspace.

Configuration

The dendron.yml file will be modified to have additional metadata for vaults that have remote repositories associated with them. A remote root is not required unless you plan on cloning your workspace to other computers.

vaults:
  - fsPath: vault1
    remote:
      type: git
      url: /path/to/vault1/repo
  - fsPath: vault2
    remote:
      type: git
      url: /path/to/vault2/repo
      branch: nightly # optional, target specific branch

Cloning

Cloning is the act of checking out a workspace on another machine. To clone, Dendron will have the Dendron: Clone Workspace command. It will take the url of a remote workspace configuration repo as input as well as a local path for the workspace root. Cloning will checkout the workspace configuration underneath the workspace root and also checkout all the vaults that are associated with the configuration underneath the workspace.

Add a new Vault

• run Dendron: Add Vault
  • specify file path relative to the current workspace root
  • specify an optional user friendly name for the vault
    • if no name is set, the last component of the file path will be used
• when the user hits enter, the vault is created as an "empty vault"
  • empty vaults will contain a root.md and root.schema.yml file

Lookup

.
└── Dendron
    |── .git
    |── dendron.code-workspace
    |── dendron.yml
    |── pods
    |── docs
    ├── vault1
    │   |── .git
    │   ├── foo.md
    │   └── foo.two.md
    └── vault2
        |── .git
        ├── foo.md
        └── foo.one.md

• lookup: {empty query}
  • show all top level results of all vaults. note how the vault name shows up in parenthesis next to the result
  • results

    root (vault1)
    root (vault2)
    foo (vault1)
    foo (vault2)
    

• lookup: vault1/
  • by prefixing lookup with the vault name, you can narrow results to a particular vault
  • results

    root (vault1)
    foo (vault1)
    

• lookup: foo.
  • dendron will merge all results from all vaults when you do a lookup
  • results

    foo.one (vault2)
    foo.two (vault1)
    

• lookup: foo.new
  • when you lookup a note that doesn't exist, you'll have the option of creating the note in either vault
  • results

    Create New (vault2)
    Create New (vault1)
    

Navigating Links

.
└── Dendron
    |── .git
    |── dendron.code-workspace
    |── dendron.yml
    |── pods
    |── docs
    ├── vault1
    │   |── .git
    │   ├── foo.md
    │   └── foo.two.md
    └── vault2
        |── .git
        ├── foo.md
        └── foo.one.md

• navigating to [[foo]] will result in a display prompting the user to select the vault to navigate to

  • the UI should be similar to the Peek Action

• navigating to [[foo.two]] will directly navigate to the note since it is unique across all vaults

• navigating to [[vault1/foo]] will open foo in vault1

Moving Notes Between Vaults

• TBD

Publishing Notes

.
└── Dendron
    |── .git
    |── dendron.code-workspace
    |── dendron.yml
    |── pods
    |── docs
    ├── vault1
    │   |── .git
    │   ├── foo.md
    │   └── foo.two.md
    └── vault2
        |── .git
        ├── foo.md
        └── foo.one.md

• configuration to publish everything under foo
  • config

    vaults:
    - name: main
        path: vault1
    - name: private
        path: vault2
    publish:
        siteHierarchies: [foo] 
    

  • published notes:

    vault1/foo.md
    vault1/two.md
    vault2/foo.md
    vault2/one.md
    

• configuration that denies publication from vault2
  • config

    vaults:
    - name: main
        path: vault1
    - name: private
        path: vault2
        allowPublish: false
    publish:
        siteHierarchies: [foo] 
    

  • published notes:

    vault1/foo.md
    vault1/two.md
    

Special Cases

Adding a vault under another vault

• you want to put all notes from vault2 under vault1 under the vault2 node
• eg: lookup should see the following hierarchy

├── foo.md
├── foo.two.md
├── vault2.foo.md
└── vault2.foo.one.md

This can be achieved with the following config

vaults:
- name: main
    path: vault1
- name: private
    path: vault2
    mountUnder: vault2

Reference

File Layout for Legacy Workspace

.
└── Dendron
    ├── .git
    ├── dendron.code-workspace
    ├── dendron.yml
    ├── docs 
    ├── pods
    ├── vault1
    │   ├── foo.md
    │   └── foo.two.md
    └── vault2
        ├── foo.md
        └── foo.one.md

File Layout for Multi-Vault Workspace

.
└── Dendron
    |── .git
    |── dendron.code-workspace
    |── dendron.yml
    |── pods
    |── docs
    ├── vault1
    │   |── .git
    │   ├── foo.md
    │   └── foo.two.md
    └── vault2
        |── .git
        ├── foo.md
        └── foo.one.md

Configuration

vaults

• top level directive in dendron.yml
• collection of one or more vaults

{vault}.name

• name of vault

{vault}.path

• path to vault

{vault}.mountUnder

• optional
• by default, all hierarchies are mounted at the root
• you change this by adding a mountpoint which is equivalent of adding a prefix to all files within the vault

Additional Resources

• project docs
• issues

Discussions

• name collision thread
• sharing materials between vaults