Show HN: Domvault – self-hostable second brain with consent-based note sharing

A Markdown-native knowledge engine (Obsidian + Claude) with a repeatable ingestion pipeline, a self-synthesis loop that generates new connections while you sleep, and an

opt-inpublishing layer that lets brains share knowledge into a shared galaxy —Constellation.

Domvault is the engine, not the content. You bring your own notes; the repo ships the structure, the workflows, the scripts, and the agent instructions that make a plain folder of Markdown behave like a living, self-improving graph.

Most "second brain" templates are just empty folders. Domvault adds three things on top:

An agent contract(CLAUDE.md

) — so Claude (Code, web, or Cowork) knows your conventions, origin-tracking scheme, and the exact repeatable workflows for ingesting screenshots, chats, and research.A self-synthesis loop— a scheduled job that generates cheap "sparks" (half-ideas linking two notes) and promotes the best into full "neuron" synthesis notes. Your graph compounds without you touching it.Constellation (opt-in)— you explicitly choose which notes/frameworks to publish. Published nodes form a shared,creditedknowledge graph that others can browse and pull. This is the consensual substrate for a future marketplace — never a backdoor into anyone's private vault.

🌌  Universe        →  the whole Constellation network (all public knowledge)
 ✨  Galaxy          →  a topic cluster or an org (e.g. "AI Engineering", "Acme Inc")
   ☀️  Solar system  →  one person's brain (their published nodes only)
     🪐  Planet       →  a single published note / framework
       🌙  Moon       →  a version or fork of a note

Everything inside a solar system is owned and gated by its owner. A planet only appears in the Universe if its owner published it. Pulling someone's planet into your own brain creates a linked copy that keeps attribution back to the origin star. That's the whole trust model: nothing moves without consent, and credit travels with the node.

plugin/

registry/

spec+ manifest schema for Constellation.constellation/

frameworks/

Publish Rubric— example shareable content.docs/

scripts/

git clone https://github.com/<you>/domvault.git && cd domvault

./plugin/install.sh ~/my-brain

Full walkthrough: docs/03-getting-started.md.

Domvault never phones home. The base engine has no network calls. Constellation publishing is:

Opt-in per note— nothing is shared unless you runpublish

on it.Explicit— you see a diff of exactly what leaves your machine.** Attributed**— your name/handle travels with every published node.** Revocable**— unpublishing removes the planet from the Universe.

There is no telemetry, no silent sync, no analytics on your private notes. If you ever find code that violates this, it's a bug — open an issue.

Source-available under ** PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0**: use it, study it, modify it, share it freely for any non-commercial purpose — but you may

not sell it or build a commercial product on it without permission, and you must keep the attribution. The author retains all commercial rights. See

for plain-English details.

docs/06-ip-and-licensing.md

Required Notice: Copyright (c) 2026 Dom Sadarangani (Domvault / Constellation)