Obsidian Links Break. Mine Don’t.  🔗 **Source:** [Obsidian Links Break. Mine Don’t.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8TEumsWrc8) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [obsidian, johnny-decimal, pkm, advanced-uri, things3, linking-workflows] > author: [Unnamed narrator (Johnny Decimal system context)] > source: [YouTube] > reference: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8TEumsWrc8] > date created: 2026-08-07 00:00 > > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > > # 🏷️ Title: Obsidian links break. Mine don't. — block-ID permalinks via Advanced URI > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [🔗 References](#-references) - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [📚 References](#-references-primary) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#️-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) - [🧱 Refactor Appendix](#-refactor-appendix) ### 🔗 References - Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8TEumsWrc8 (published 2026-08-06, ~4:34, ~1,019 transcript words) - Obsidian Advanced URI plugin (required): https://github.com/Vinzent03/obsidian-advanced-uri - Obsidian block references (built-in `^block-id` syntax): https://help.obsidian.md/Linking+notes+and+files/Internal+links#Link+to+a+block+in+a+note - Johnny Decimal system: https://johnnydecimal.com/ - Things 3 (Cultured Code): https://culturedcode.com/things/ ## 📝 Summary - **What happened.** A ~4.5-minute screencast demonstrating how to build cross-application links into Obsidian that survive file renames, by anchoring Advanced URI links to **block IDs** rather than file paths, then hand-editing the generated URI to strip the file-path parameter entirely. - **Why it matters.** It solves a genuine and common PKM failure: links from external tools (task managers, calendars, tickets) into a note graph rot the moment you reorganize. The insight that Obsidian will resolve a block ID *without* a file path — making the filename irrelevant — is the load-bearing trick and is not widely known. - **Key stakeholders.** Obsidian users running a second system (Things, Todoist, Jira, Linear); Johnny Decimal practitioners; anyone maintaining a long-lived vault where reorganization is expected rather than exceptional. - **Risks and tradeoffs.** The "unbreakable" claim is overstated in at least three specific ways (below). The technique depends on a community plugin, on manual URI surgery, and on Obsidian's undocumented tolerance for path-less block resolution — none of which carry a stability guarantee. - **Bottom line.** A genuinely good technique with a real durability gain over the default `Copy path as Obsidian URL`, oversold as absolute. Adopt it; do not believe "impossible to break." ## 📖 Main Content - **The framing principle.** The video opens with an ethical-sounding productivity argument: your present self routinely creates work for your future self, and leaving a link is the cheap remedy. This is the emotional hook and the actual through-line — the technique is secondary to the habit. - **The failure being fixed.** Obsidian's built-in right-click → *Copy path as Obsidian URL* produces a URI containing the **file name**. Rename the file — which the narrator argues you should do freely — and the link dies. - **The fix: block IDs as permalinks.** Obsidian has a built-in block-reference feature: type `^` followed by an identifier to label a block. The narrator calls these permalinks because they anchor to a *piece of text you choose* rather than to a file location. Move the block to another file and the link still resolves. - **Naming constraints.** Block IDs accept letters, numbers, and hyphens only. Decimals are not permitted — which matters because the narrator's preferred ID source is a **Johnny Decimal** number, so the decimal point is simply dropped. Multiple blocks on one page get disambiguated with an appended hyphenated word. - **Why Johnny Decimal pairs well.** Block IDs must be unique across the whole vault. A Johnny Decimal ID is already a vault-unique identifier, so the uniqueness requirement is satisfied for free rather than by invention. - **The tooling step.** Requires the **Advanced URI** community plugin. With the cursor on the block, `Cmd-P` → *Advanced URI: Copy URI for current block*. - **The critical manual edit.** The generated URI contains both a file path and a block parameter. The narrator deletes everything from the `&filepath=` ampersand up to the `&block` parameter. What remains is vault + block. His stated justification is the key technical claim: as long as the block name is unique, **Obsidian does not care which file it lives in**. - **Bidirectional linking with Things.** Getting the reverse link is simpler — in Things: dots → share → copy link. The clever part is the packaging trick: he places the Things link *inside the Things project itself*, alongside the Obsidian link, producing a block that contains a useless self-reference. That redundancy is deliberate — it makes the whole block copy-pasteable as a unit into Obsidian. - **The template workflow.** Steady state is duplication, not authoring. Duplicate the Obsidian template, rename, bump the permalink number (~4 seconds). Duplicate the Things template project, update the trailing digits to match, paste the project name copied from Obsidian, then copy the whole block back. Claimed total: ~20 seconds per project. - **Closing summary (his own).** Look for chances to help future you with links; do it with templates; use block permalinks to make the links durable; all of it composes with Johnny Decimal IDs. ### 🗒️ Notes - [00:00–00:08] Cold open — a Things→Obsidian link that survived a rename; "my links are unbreakable." - [00:08–00:22] The future-you argument, framed as rudeness rather than inefficiency. - [00:23–00:51] The manual-navigation anti-pattern; capture the link at creation time when you already know the location. - [01:02–01:25] Default `Copy path as Obsidian URL` demonstrated and then broken by a rename. - [01:26–01:44] Block permalinks introduced; anchored to chosen text; movable. - [01:46–02:04] `^` syntax; character restrictions — letters, numbers, hyphen. - [02:04–02:22] Johnny Decimal IDs as block names; drop the decimal; vault-wide uniqueness requirement. - [02:23–02:45] Advanced URI plugin install; command palette invocation. - [02:47–03:09] **The core move** — strip the file-path segment; Obsidian resolves by block ID alone. - [03:10–03:20] Paste as markdown link into Things; round trip verified. - [03:21–03:45] The deliberate self-link redundancy so the block copies as one unit. - [03:46–04:18] Template duplication workflow; ~4 seconds Obsidian, ~20 seconds end to end. - [04:19–04:34] Summary and Johnny Decimal tie-in. ## 📚 References (primary) - Obsidian Help — internal links and block references (authoritative for `^block-id` syntax and constraints) - Advanced URI plugin repository and docs (authoritative for the `Copy URI for current block` command and parameter names) - Johnny Decimal — the numbering system supplying vault-unique IDs - Things 3 URL scheme documentation (for the reverse link) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - **Opening.** A link from Things into Obsidian still works despite the target file having been renamed long ago, because it is not anchored to the filename. - **The argument.** Present-you knows where things are; future-you will not. Leaving a link at creation time is a small courtesy that compounds. - **The default is fragile.** Obsidian's own URL-copying command bakes the file name into the URI, so renaming breaks it — and you should be renaming freely. - **The mechanism.** Obsidian block IDs (`^identifier`) label a specific block of text. Links to that ID follow the text, not the file. - **Constraints.** Letters, numbers, hyphens; no decimals; must be unique vault-wide. Johnny Decimal IDs satisfy uniqueness by construction. - **The procedure.** Install Advanced URI, copy the block URI from the command palette, then delete the file-path portion, leaving vault plus block. - **Round trip.** Paste that into Things; copy Things' own share link back into the same block so the pair travels together. - **Steady state.** Duplicate templates on both sides and update the number — roughly twenty seconds per new project. ## 📰 Newsletter **Your links rot because they point at filenames** Here's a four-minute video with one genuinely good idea in it: stop linking to Obsidian *files* and start linking to Obsidian *blocks*. The default right-click → Copy path as Obsidian URL bakes the filename into the URI. Rename the note — which you should feel free to do — and the link is dead. Block IDs don't have that problem. Type `^some-id` to tag a block, grab its URI with the Advanced URI plugin, then delete the `&filepath=` chunk out of the generated link. What's left points at the block, and Obsidian will find it no matter which file it's sitting in. Move the text to a different note entirely; the link still lands. If you run Johnny Decimal, this composes beautifully — block IDs must be unique across the vault, and you already have a unique number for everything. Drop the decimal point (not a legal character) and you're done. Two cautions the video doesn't mention. The vault name is still in that URI, so renaming your vault breaks every link you've made this way. And "impossible to break" really means "survives file renames and moves" — delete the block, or paste a duplicate ID somewhere else, and you're back to broken. It's a big durability upgrade, not immortality. **Links:** [the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8TEumsWrc8) · [Advanced URI](https://github.com/Vinzent03/obsidian-advanced-uri) · [Johnny Decimal](https://johnnydecimal.com/) ## ✅ Action Items - **DevRel** - `#action/h2` The "current you is being rude to future you" framing is an unusually good hook for documentation advocacy — the same argument justifies stable anchor IDs in docs and permalinks in changelogs. - `#action/h3` Note the pedagogical structure: show the breakage first, then the fix. Reusable for any migration or deprecation explainer. - **OSPO** - `#action/h3` Not substantially applicable — no licensing, security, or governance content. The transferable idea is that identifier stability is a maintenance policy, not a preference. - **Community** - `#action/h3` Durable deep-links into community documentation reduce repeat support questions; the block-ID pattern is the vault-local analogue of a stable doc anchor. - **WordPress (by team)** - Documentation: strongest mapping — stable anchor IDs so links into the handbooks survive restructuring. This is the same failure mode at a different scale. - Meta: permalink stability and redirect maps for moved handbook pages. - Training: the future-you framing is directly usable in a Learn module on note-taking and knowledge capture. - Support: durable links to canonical answers reduce duplicate tickets. - Core, Core Performance, Core AI, Core Program Team, Mobile, Playground, Marketing, Design, Photos, TV, Polyglots, Accessibility, CLI, Hosting, Tide, Openverse, Themes, Plugins: Not applicable to this source — a personal PKM linking tutorial offers these teams nothing actionable. - **The WPOCC** - `#action/h3` Marginal: durable identifiers for governance decision records so citations survive reorganization. Worth a line in any decision-log design. - **FAIR** - `#action/h2` Genuinely relevant by analogy: FAIR's whole problem is resolving a resource independent of its location. Block-ID resolution — identifier over path — is the same principle at desktop scale. Location-independent identifiers are the shared idea. - **Personal / immediate (Courtney)** - `#action/h1` You already have Advanced URI and `obsidian-things3-sync` installed. This technique is adoptable today with zero new dependencies. - `#action/h2` Reconcile with the existing `obsid-link-builder` skill, which currently generates `obsid.net/?vault=…&file=…` links — those are **file-path based and therefore rename-fragile**. A block-ID variant would harden every link that skill has ever produced. - `#action/h3` Test the vault-rename failure mode before committing, since "2nd Brain" appears in every URI. ## 🧪 Hypotheses 1. Block-ID links survive file rename and cross-file move; file-path links do not. *Directly testable in minutes — rename a note and click both.* 2. Obsidian resolves a block parameter with no file path supplied, vault-wide. *This is the load-bearing undocumented claim; test with a block deliberately moved to a different folder.* 3. Duplicate block IDs across a vault produce non-deterministic resolution rather than an error. *Testable by planting the same ID in two notes.* 4. Renaming the vault breaks every Advanced URI link, because the vault name is a URI parameter. *Predicted to be true and unmentioned in the video.* 5. The claimed ~20-second per-project setup holds for a practiced user with templates already built. *Plausible; the 4-second Obsidian half is the credible part.* 6. Block-ID linking reduces link rot in a mature vault by an order of magnitude versus path links over a year of reorganization. *Testable via a link-checker sweep.* ## 📊 Methodology **Of the source:** none in the research sense. This is a demonstration screencast — a single practitioner showing a personal workflow on his own vault. No sample, no comparison, no measurement beyond a stopwatch-style "about 20 seconds" and "about 4 seconds," both self-reported and unmeasured on camera. The durability claim is demonstrated by a single anecdotal case (one renamed file, one working link), which establishes existence but not robustness. **Of this analysis:** transcript read in full from the Reader `notes` capture (~1,019 words, auto-generated captions). Every procedural step above is drawn from explicit statements in the transcript. The three failure modes named in Logical Validity are **my inferences from how the mechanism works**, not claims the narrator makes or refutes — they are flagged as untested predictions, not findings, and hypothesis 4 exists specifically so the vault-rename case gets verified rather than assumed. No hands-on verification against a live vault was performed as part of this analysis. ## ❓ Questions - Is path-less block resolution a documented, supported Obsidian behavior, or an implementation detail that could regress in a future release? - What actually happens on a duplicate block ID — first match, error, or silent arbitrary pick? - Does the vault name in the URI make vault renaming a breaking operation across every link ever created? - Do block IDs survive Obsidian Sync conflicts and merge resolution intact? - What happens to the link if the block is deleted but its ID is later reused elsewhere? - Does this compose with Obsidian Publish, or do block URIs only resolve locally? - Could the file-path stripping be automated — a Templater snippet or a one-line QuickAdd macro — instead of hand-edited every time? ## 🔮 Future Research - Write the automation the video leaves manual: a command that emits the stripped URI directly, removing the fussiest and most error-prone step. - Empirical link-rot study across a mature vault comparing path links and block links over a reorganization cycle. - Investigate whether Obsidian's path-less block resolution is guaranteed or incidental — worth an issue or forum question upstream. - Explore a Johnny Decimal ↔ block ID convention document, since the pairing is the strongest part of the idea and is only sketched here. - Generalize the pattern: what is the equivalent durable anchor for links *into* a website, a repo, or a docs handbook? ## 💡 Implications - **Practice.** Capture links at creation time, when location knowledge is free. The habit matters more than the tooling. - **Policy.** Identifier stability is an organizational commitment. Choosing to anchor on IDs rather than paths is the same decision libraries, DOIs, and permalinks made decades ago. - **Security.** Minor but real: Advanced URI can trigger arbitrary Obsidian commands via link, so links pasted from untrusted sources deserve inspection — the video does not raise this. - **Education.** Show-the-breakage-first is an effective teaching structure and transfers to almost any "why does this practice exist" lesson. - **Funding.** Not applicable to this source — no funding, sponsorship, or sustainability content appears. ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - **Visual.** Very well served in the video — it is a screencast where every step is demonstrated on screen. Almost none of this survives into the transcript, which is why the text alone is hard to follow. - **Aural.** Well served. Single clear narrator, conversational pace, no music beds competing with speech. - **Verbal.** Moderately served. The narration is explicit about parameter names, but the crucial edit ("from this ampersand before file path down to this one just before block") is described deictically — "this" and "that" refer to things only visible on screen. - **Kinesthetic.** Strongly served. This is a follow-along procedure with immediate feedback; you can test it in under two minutes. - **Logical.** Well served. Clean problem → cause → mechanism → constraints → procedure → steady-state structure. - **Social.** Not served — solo screencast, no dialogue or community interaction. - **Solitary.** Very well served; the entire workflow is a private, self-paced setup task. - **Naturalistic.** Not applicable to this source — no classification, ecological, or natural-world content. - **Reading level.** Roughly grade 8–10 in vocabulary, but the *conceptual* level is higher: it presumes comfort with URIs, query parameters, plugins, and command palettes. The phrase "URI is just a technical term for a link" is a genuine, well-placed accommodation for less technical viewers. ## 📊 Accessibility Assessment Mapped to WCAG 2.2 AA, evaluating the YouTube delivery. 1. **Perceivable — text alternatives.** ⚠️ Auto-captions only. They handle this content better than the Penpot video (fewer proper nouns), but "carrot symbol" for **caret** (`^`) is a meaning-changing error on the single most important character in the technique. 2. **Perceivable — time-based media.** ❌ No audio description, and this is the most severe failure here. The critical step — which characters to delete from the URI — is conveyed almost entirely by pointing: "from this ampersand down to this one." A non-sighted user cannot complete the procedure from the audio alone. 3. **Operable — keyboard.** ✅ Standard player. Notably, the workflow being taught is itself keyboard-driven (`Cmd-P` command palette), which is an accessibility win for the technique if not the video. 4. **Operable — enough time.** ⚠️ Fast-paced with rapid on-screen edits; pausing is essential and the video assumes viewers will do so. 5. **Understandable — readable.** ✅ Good. Jargon is glossed ("URI is just a technical term for a link"), and constraints are stated plainly. 6. **Understandable — predictable.** ✅ Strong linear structure with an explicit recap at the end. 7. **Robust — compatible.** ✅ Standard delivery. The technique itself depends on a third-party plugin, which is a resilience concern for the workflow rather than the video. **Priority fix:** state the URI edit in words — "delete from `&filepath=` through to `&block=`" — rather than by pointing. One sentence would make the whole procedure completable without sight. ## 🌍 DEIB Assessment - **Cultural breadth.** Neutral and broadly portable. No culturally specific references, idioms, or examples that would need localization. The tooling assumption is significant though: Things 3 is macOS/iOS-only and paid, so the concrete worked example excludes Windows, Linux, and Android users — the underlying block-ID technique is platform-neutral, but the demonstration is not. - **Inclusive language.** Good. Second-person and welcoming. Mild self-deprecating hedges ("not many to be honest") keep the register unintimidating. The narrator's "you shouldn't be afraid to" rename files is explicitly permission-giving rather than shaming. - **Neurodiversity support.** Strong on structure — clear sequencing, explicit recap, short duration. Weaker on pace and on deictic reference ("this," "that," "here"), which increases working-memory load for anyone not tracking the screen continuously. The template-duplication endpoint is genuinely supportive: it converts a fiddly multi-step task into a repeatable four-second action, which is a real accommodation for executive-function load. - **Representation.** Not assessable — no on-camera presence, no name given in the transcript, no contributors credited. - **Psychological safety.** Not applicable in the interpersonal sense — no dialogue or community interaction occurs. The tone toward the *viewer* is notably non-judgmental: the anti-pattern is described as "boring and pointless" rather than as the viewer's failing, and the framing blames the tooling default rather than the user. ## ✅ Logical Validity **Strong reasoning** - The problem diagnosis is precisely correct: the default URI embeds a filename, and filenames are exactly the thing that changes. Cause and effect are correctly identified rather than hand-waved. - The insight that identifier-based resolution beats path-based resolution is genuinely sound and is the same principle behind DOIs, permalinks, and content addressing. - The uniqueness constraint is stated honestly and then *solved* rather than glossed — the Johnny Decimal pairing is a real answer to a real requirement, not a marketing tie-in. - The self-link redundancy is defended on explicit ergonomic grounds ("who cares... it makes this act much simpler"), acknowledging the ugliness rather than pretending it isn't there. - Character restrictions are stated up front, which prevents the most likely first-attempt failure. **Fallacies** 1. **Overgeneralization / absolute claim.** *"my links are unbreakable"* [00:06] and *"these links are impossible to break"* [01:32–01:34]. *Why it fails:* the technique defends against exactly one failure mode — file rename and move. At least three break paths remain, none mentioned: (a) the **vault name is still a URI parameter**, so renaming the vault breaks every link; (b) deleting the block or editing its ID breaks the link; (c) a duplicate block ID elsewhere in the vault makes resolution ambiguous, and he states the uniqueness requirement without saying what happens when it is violated. *Fix:* claim "survives renames and moves," which is both true and still impressive. 2. **Suppressed evidence (dependency risk).** *Located:* [02:23–02:27], the Advanced URI install step. *Why it fails:* the durability pitch rests on a third-party community plugin plus an undocumented Obsidian resolution behavior. A workflow sold on permanence should disclose that its foundation is not first-party. *Fix:* one sentence naming the dependency risk. 3. **Appeal to emotion (mild, and effective).** *"It's actually really rude when you think about it"* [00:13–00:14]. *Why it's weak:* framing a time-management choice as a moral failing toward a hypothetical future self is rhetorically strong but not an argument for this technique over any other link strategy. *Mitigation:* harmless and genuinely memorable; it motivates the habit rather than substituting for the mechanism. 4. **Unsupported quantification.** *"Takes about 20 seconds"* [01:00–01:02] and *"about 4 seconds"* [03:52–03:54]. *Why it fails:* self-reported, unmeasured on camera, and conditioned on templates already existing — setup cost is excluded from the figure. *Fix:* state it as steady-state-after-setup, which he implies but never says. 5. **False dilemma (weak).** The default method is presented as "rubbish" with block IDs as the alternative. *Why it's incomplete:* other durable options exist — Obsidian URIs by UID front-matter, `obsid.net` style resolvers, or plugin-managed permanent IDs — and none are acknowledged. *Mitigation:* minor for a four-minute video, but relevant to anyone already running a different ID scheme. **Tone of voice.** Brisk, opinionated, companionable. Heavy second-person address and imperative mood ("Don't do this," "Here's what you do"), short declaratives, and a light contrarian streak toward defaults. Confident to the point of overclaiming, but never condescending — the criticism lands on tooling and habits, not on the viewer. Register is enthusiast-to-enthusiast, presuming shared frustration with link rot. ## 🛡️ DARVO Analysis **Not applicable to this source.** DARVO is a defensive pattern that appears when a person is accused of wrongdoing. This is a solo technical screencast with no accusation, no interpersonal conflict, and no accused party. - **Deny.** ⚪ Absent — no allegation exists to deny. The nearest analogue is the omission of the technique's failure modes, which is ordinary demo optimism rather than denial of a charge. - **Attack.** ⚪ Absent — the only targets of criticism are a software default and a navigation habit. Criticizing a right-click menu item is not an attack on a party. - **Reverse victim and offender.** ⚪ Absent — no victim or offender roles are present. The "current you is being rude to future you" framing assigns fault to the viewer's past self, but it is self-directed, gentle, and rhetorical rather than a reassignment of blame between real parties. Do not tag this document with any `#darvo/*` value. ## 🎯 Conclusion **Bottom line.** The core insight is correct and useful: anchor cross-app links to Obsidian **block IDs** rather than file paths, then strip the file path from the generated Advanced URI so resolution depends only on the ID. That genuinely survives renames and cross-file moves, which is the dominant cause of link rot in an actively maintained vault. The presentation oversells it as "impossible to break" while leaving three real break paths unmentioned — vault rename, block deletion or ID edit, and duplicate IDs. The Johnny Decimal pairing is the most elegant part, because it satisfies the vault-wide uniqueness requirement using an identifier you already maintain. **Next steps.** 1. Test hypothesis 2 directly — move a block with an ID to a different note and confirm the path-less URI still resolves. Everything depends on that behavior. 2. Test the vault-rename break path before converting any links at scale. 3. Reconcile with the `obsid-link-builder` skill, which currently emits file-path-based `obsid.net` links and inherits exactly the fragility this video diagnoses. 4. Automate the manual URI surgery — it is the only fiddly step and the only one likely to be done wrong. ## 🧱 Refactor Appendix ### Literature Split Pad #### L1 — Path-based links rot; identifier-based links survive `#atom/literature/h1` > [!quote] if you look at the URL, see how it's got the file name in it? Well, let's now rename that file which is a thing you shouldn't be afraid to do. You're going to rename stuff all the time and now that link is broken. Claim: the default Obsidian URI embeds the filename, making it fragile against the most routine vault operation. Source: [01:14–01:25]. #### L2 — Obsidian resolves a block ID without a file path `#atom/literature/h1` > [!quote] What's left is a link to this specific block in this specific vault. And as long as that block name is unique, Obsidian doesn't care which file it's in. Claim: stripping `&filepath=` yields location-independent resolution. This is the load-bearing technical claim of the entire video and is undocumented behavior. Source: [03:00–03:09]. #### L3 — Vault-wide uniqueness is the binding constraint, and Johnny Decimal satisfies it `#atom/literature/h2` > [!quote] Because these blocks need to be unique in your vault, which is why using Johnny Decimal IDs is nice. You've already got a unique ID right there that you can use. Claim: an existing numbering system supplies uniqueness for free. Constraints: letters, numbers, hyphens only; no decimals. Source: [02:16–02:23]. #### L4 — Capture the link when you already know the location `#atom/literature/h3` > [!quote] When I created this project, I knew exactly where it was because I was in it at the time. I just created it. So, at that point, I put a link over here in Obsidian. Claim: location knowledge is free at creation time and expensive later; capture is a timing decision, not a tooling one. ### Atomic Split Pad - **Z1 — Identifier over path `#atom/zettel/z1`.** Durable references resolve by identity, not location. The same principle underlies DOIs, permalinks, UUIDs, and content addressing; block IDs are its desktop-scale instance. Links to `[[fair-federated-resolution]]` — FAIR solves the same problem at ecosystem scale. - **Z2 — Future-self debt `#atom/zettel/z1`.** Every act of not recording context is a loan taken against your future attention, at interest. The remedy is cheapest at the moment of creation, when the context is still free. - **Z3 — Uniqueness borrowed from an existing scheme `#atom/zettel/z1`.** When a system requires unique IDs, reuse an identifier you already maintain rather than minting a parallel one. Two ID systems eventually disagree; one cannot. - **Z4 — Deliberate redundancy for ergonomics `#atom/zettel/z1`.** A useless self-referencing link inside a block is accepted so the block becomes a single copy-paste unit. Redundancy that reduces steps can be correct even when it looks untidy. - **Z5 — Absolute claims mark unexamined failure modes `#atom/zettel/z1`.** "Impossible to break" is a reliable signal that the speaker has enumerated one failure mode and stopped. Treat absolutes as prompts to hunt for the unlisted break paths. ### Fleeting Queue - `#atom/fleeting/f1` `obsid-link-builder` emits file-path links — it inherits exactly this fragility. Worth a skill revision, not just a note. - `#atom/fleeting/f1` Advanced URI can invoke arbitrary Obsidian commands by link; pasting untrusted `obsidian://` links is a real if minor attack surface nobody discusses. - `#atom/fleeting/f1` The vault name sits in every URI — does renaming "2nd Brain" break thousands of links? Test before it matters. - `#atom/fleeting/f1` "Current you is being rude to future you" is a genuinely good line for a Field Notes piece on documentation debt. - `#atom/fleeting/f1` Does any of this survive into Obsidian Publish, or are block URIs strictly local? Relevant given the published vault. - `#atom/fleeting/f1` Caption error: "carrot symbol" for **caret**. Same ASR-corrupts-technical-terms pattern as the Penpot video — two for two in this batch. <!-- deep-read:sections end --> 📄 **Full text:** [[Full Document Contents/Articles/Obsidian Links Break. Mine Don’t..md|Obsidian Links Break. Mine Don’t. by YouTube]] ## Highlights - So that's why I call it a 'permalink'. So these links are impossible to break. The filename has become irrelevant. And you can even move this permalink around if you want, and the link will always bring you to this spot. So the secret is these permalinks, which you create and name. And this is a built-in feature in Obsidian called a 'block'. You type the caret symbol and then some text to define a block. There are restrictions on the characters you can use. Not many, to be honest, but if it's tiny and grey like this, it's good, and if it's in normal text like this, it's not going to work. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kze5wncm9vzkywy5nfazmyha)) - Note: L1/fallacy — "impossible to break" is an overclaim. The technique defends against ONE failure mode (file rename/move). Three break paths go unmentioned: (1) the vault name is still a URI parameter, so renaming the vault breaks every link; (2) deleting the block or editing its ID; (3) duplicate block IDs elsewhere in the vault — he states the uniqueness requirement but never says what happens when it's violated. Honest version: "survives renames and moves," which is still a big win. Absolute claims are a reliable signal that someone enumerated one failure mode and stopped. - Tags: fallacy/overgeneralization, pkm, obsidian, atom/literature/h2 - Stick with characters, numbers, and the hyphen. I'm usually in a note with a Johnny.Decimal ID, so I'll use that ID as the block name. You can't use decimals, so I just leave it out. If you've got more than one block on a page, you can add more words with a dash. Because these blocks need to be unique in your vault, which is why using Johnny.Decimal IDs is nice. You've already got a unique ID right there that you can use. To link to this permalink, you need the Advanced URI community plugin. So find it and install it. And URI is just a technical ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kze5x3rd3zexeafym38rza8r)) - Note: L3 — The binding constraint and its elegant solution. Block IDs must be unique vault-wide; characters/numbers/hyphen only, no decimals. Johnny.Decimal IDs satisfy uniqueness for free — drop the decimal point. Generalizable: when a system demands unique IDs, reuse an identifier you already maintain rather than minting a parallel scheme, because two ID systems eventually disagree and one cannot. Dependency disclosed here: Advanced URI community plugin (not first-party) — worth noting for a workflow sold on permanence. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, johnny-decimal, atom/literature/h2, obsidian - What's left is a link to this specific block in this specific vault. And as long as that block name is unique, Obsidian doesn't care which file it's in. Let's stick this in our Things project as a markdown link, and now clicking that takes us back to Obsidian. Getting a link back to the Things project is simpler. You click the dots, Share, Copy Link. And now here's a trick for simplicity. We're going to add this link below this one. So we're in Things, and we're linking to Things. Well, yeah, we're never going to use this link, but now we can just copy this whole ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kze5wfeywh4kk1xet8rgpvnk)) - Note: L2 — THE load-bearing claim: strip &filepath= from the Advanced URI and "Obsidian doesn't care which file it's in." Location-independent resolution by block ID. This is undocumented behavior, so verify it directly (move a block to another note, click the link) before converting links at scale. Same principle as DOIs/permalinks/content addressing — identifier over path — and the desktop-scale analogue of what FAIR solves at ecosystem scale. Also contains the deliberate self-link redundancy trick: a useless Things→Things link so the whole block copies as one unit. - Tags: obsidian, atom/zettel/z1, atom/literature/h1, advanced-uri, pkm ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Stable Identifiers Decouple Links From File Location]] — evidence-for: a block ID continues resolving after its containing file changes.