PARA-ZK

Zettelkasten Workflows

2 min read

PARA-ZK’s Zettelkasten is built around three note kinds: spark, digest, and permanent.

ZK Note Kinds

  • Spark: quick internal capture. Sparks are transient and can be marked processed: true after distillation.
  • Digest: your own-words summary or interpretation of an external source.
  • Permanent: a durable, atomic idea connected to the rest of your notes.

Create a ZK note from Obsidian:

PARA-ZK: Create ZK note

Or from the CLI:

optsidian para-zk:create-zk title="Stable Interface Contracts" kind=permanent maturity=refined

Create From Sources

Resources and digest notes can become new ZK notes while preserving the origin.

optsidian para-zk:create-from-resource source_title="Source Paper" title="Paper Insight" kind=digest
optsidian para-zk:create-from-digest source_title="Paper Digest" title="Compounding learning" maturity=refined

The new note references the origin. The source remains unchanged and later shows the new note through backlinks and Cited by views.

Distill A Spark

Distill when a spark contains an idea worth keeping:

optsidian para-zk:distill-spark source_title="Raw Thought" title="Durable Thought" maturity=evergreen

By default, the spark stays in place, is marked processed: true, and records the permanent in distilled_to. Pass discard=true to move the spark to Obsidian trash instead. The permanent never references the ephemeral spark.

Inline Citations

Use inline citation tokens to cite the note’s reference registry from the body.

`PZ[abc123]`
`PZ[abc123, def456]`
`PZ[abc123#Training Loop]`

The value inside PZ[...] is the reference’s stable id, returned by read ... key=references. It is not the visible registry position. A section suffix such as #Training Loop or #^block-id points the citation at a heading or block inside the referenced note.

Inline citations work in both reading view and Live Preview. In Live Preview, the raw token is visible while the cursor is inside it, and the rendered citation appears otherwise.

Warning

Positional input such as `PZ[0]` is not supported. The stored id stays stable across reference reorders; only the rendered [n] display follows the current registry position.

PARA-ZK relies on Obsidian-resolved links for reverse relationships. A note does not store every note that cites it.

Read backlinks from automation with:

optsidian para-zk:read-zk title="Stable Interface Contracts" kind=permanent key=backlinks

Use Cited by views to see notes that point at the current resource, digest, spark, or permanent.

Graph View

Backlinks