Sylvics Apply for the beta
Install guide

From download to your first note in half an hour.

Nine steps. Most take a minute, about as long as a kettle. Tick them off as you go: this page remembers where you are in this browser.

  1. Install Obsidian

    Download the free desktop app from obsidian.md. If you already have it, update it: some Sylvics pages use Obsidian's newer Bases feature.

    On Linux, the AppImage or the Flatpak both work.

  2. Download the vault

    Use the link in your acceptance email. The zip is about 600 MB, mostly background images, ambient sound and the example vault's photographs.

  3. Unzip it to a local folder

    Double-click the zip, then move the Sylvics folder to your home folder or Documents. If Documents syncs to iCloud, choose your home folder instead for now.

    Keep the hidden folder. The vault contains a hidden .obsidian folder with the plugins and settings. Copy the whole folder as it is. You can move the vault into a sync folder later, once it has opened once.

  4. Open the folder as a vault

    In Obsidian, choose Open folder as vault (from the vault switcher at the bottom left if another vault is open), then select the Sylvics folder.

  5. Trust the author and enable plugins

    Obsidian asks whether to trust the vault's plugins. Choose Trust author and enable plugins. The dashboards are drawn by the Sylvics plugin and about three dozen community plugins bundled with it; without them, pages show grey boxes of code.

    If you chose Restricted mode by mistake: Cmd/Ctrl + , → Community plugins → Turn on community plugins, then quit and reopen Obsidian.

  6. Wait for the first indexing

    On first start Obsidian reads about two thousand notes. A start-up screen shows for a few seconds, then the Homepage: a clock and one way in. Dashboards fill in within about a minute. If something looks empty, press Cmd/Ctrl + R.

  7. Enter your licence key

    Open Settings → Sylvics Core Plugin → Sylvics HQ. Paste the key from your email and click Check My Key while online. After that first check you can work offline for 30 days. The check sends only the key to our payment provider; nothing about your notes.

  8. Set up a backup

    Your vault is one folder on one computer until you copy it. Close Obsidian and copy the whole folder, hidden .obsidian included, to an external drive or cloud storage. Repeat weekly, or use one sync service and never open the vault on two computers at once.

    Before sharing a copy. Your licence key and any AI provider keys are stored as plain text in .obsidian/plugins/sylvics-core/data.json. Remove that file from any copy you give to someone else.

  9. Take the Start Here tour

    On the Homepage, enter the Control Center and click the green START HERE card. In ten minutes you capture a thought, turn it into a task, see it on Mission Control, open today's note with Cmd/Ctrl + D, read one of Mira's days and open the Canopy.

Pages show grey boxes of code

The community plugins are not running. Turn them on (step 5), check that Sylvics Core Plugin, Dataview, Templater, Meta Bind and JS Engine are switched on, then quit and reopen Obsidian. If the plugin list is empty, the hidden .obsidian folder was not copied: unzip again.

“Today” panels are empty

Expected. Mira's example year is 2025, so the dashboards show her last week until you switch: run Sylvics Core: Toggle example dates from the command palette. Notes you create always get the real date.

Still stuck? Testers have a direct line to the founder. Everyone else: see the troubleshooting notes.

Next · Page 2 of 15 · 2 minYour first ten minutesStart Here, the three controls on every page, and the loop you will use daily.Continue
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