Show HN: Skill for your agent to visualize your gbrain and Obsidian

Source: Hacker News

Turn a folder of Markdown notes (an Obsidian vault or a gbrain export) into one self-contained, interactive HTML knowledge map — a force-directed graph coloured by theme, a timeline you can scrub to watch the base grow, and a click-to-inspect panel.

Works with: Claude Code · OpenAI Codex · Cursor · Gemini CLI · OpenClaw · or just run the script.

See it in 5 seconds (no setup)

A prebuilt demo ships in this repo — no notes to generate, no embeddings, no gbrain, no Python. Open the file: open demo/brain-map.html # macOS xdg-open demo/brain-map.html # Linux start demo/brain-map.html # Windows 992 fictional notes across three themes (work · study · life). Scrub the timeline, press ▶ Play growth, click nodes, toggle filters.

Build from your own notes

out.html —title “My Second Brain” open out.html”>python3 scripts/build_map.py out.html —title “My Second Brain” open out.html “ = your Obsidian vault, or a gbrain export --dir directory. The map reads plain Markdown: YAML frontmatter (tags, created) + [[wikilinks]].

Dependencies are optional

Setup Result

Nothing (stdlib Python only) Builds anywhere; the browser computes the layout (Cytoscape cose).

pip install -r requirements.txt (networkx, numpy, scipy) Layout pre-computed → 1000-node maps open instantly and look cleaner.

The builder auto-detects networkx and picks the better path. No gbrain, no embeddings, no server required either way.

What it reads

• Theme = top-level folder (Work/, Study/, Life/) → node & edge colour.

Type = subfolder / tags → node shape (person, meeting, journal, lecture, project, link, todo, index, note).

• Edges = resolved [[wikilinks]]. Node size scales with link count; hubs get labels.

• Timeline = created timestamps, bucketed by month, stacked by theme.

The richer your cross-linking (people cards, meeting attendees, index pages), the more legible the map. Designed to pair with the save-note skill, which writes exactly this shape.

In the HTML

Scrub / Play the timeline → the graph reveals notes up to that month; Play animates the whole base growing from empty to today.

• Filter by theme and type (live counts); search highlights matches.

Click a node → dim the rest, light its neighbourhood, open a detail panel (summary, tags, date, connected notes).

• Responsive down to a phone.

Install as an agent skill

Claude Code

git clone https://github.com/vladignatyev/brain-map-skill ~/.claude/skills/brain-map

OpenAI Codex

git clone https://github.com/vladignatyev/brain-map-skill ~/.agents/skills/brain-map

Cursor / others — paste SKILL.md into your agent’s instructions; it’s self-contained.

Regenerate the demo corpus

python3 scripts/generate_demo_notes.py /tmp/demo-vault # 992 invented notes python3 scripts/build_map.py /tmp/demo-vault demo.html

All demo people, orgs and events are fictional — no real data.

Layout

brain-map-skill/
├── SKILL.md                      # agent skill spec
├── scripts/
│   ├── build_map.py              # the builder (Markdown dir → interactive HTML)
│   └── generate_demo_notes.py    # writes the fictional demo vault
├── demo/
│   ├── brain-map.html            # PREBUILT — open it, zero setup
│   ├── vault/                    # 992 source Markdown notes
│   └── preview.png
├── requirements.txt              # optional: networkx, numpy, scipy
└── LICENSE

License

MIT