spine

Spine

A self-developing knowledge management system for Claude Code.

Spine bridges Claude Code's memory to an Obsidian vault, giving your AI agent persistent, structured knowledge that compounds with every commit. Your AI gets smarter with every fix, every feature, every decision.

I started building Spine in March 2026 while working on production React/Express apps. The pain was simple: Claude kept rediscovering the same context from scratch every session. Fixes I'd spent hours debugging would be forgotten. Architecture decisions had no home. The knowledge died in the context window.

Spine was my answer: a two-layer system where Claude memory becomes structured signposts pointing into an Obsidian vault of curated, feature-organized docs. It worked so well I open-sourced it.

Why Spine?

Most AI memory solutions fall into two camps:

1. Flat memory — Claude Code's native memories. Lightweight but unstructured. No organization, no connections, no depth.
2. Heavy infrastructure — Knowledge graphs, vector DBs, MCP servers, Python dependencies. Powerful but complex to set up and maintain.

Spine sits in between. It's just markdown files in an Obsidian vault with a set of conventions that make them navigable by both humans and AI. No dependencies. No servers. No Python. Just files, wikilinks, and frontmatter tags.

Your vault/
  └─ your-repo/
       └─ Authentication/
            ├─ Authentication.md              ← spine note (the hub)
            ├─ 2026-03-18 Fix - Cookie Expiry.md
            ├─ Architecture - OAuth Flow.md
            └─ Decision - JWT vs Session.md

How It Works

Two layers, three hops:

Claude Memory          →  Spine Note           →  Specific Doc
(one-line signpost)       (feature hub)           (root cause, code snippets)

1. Claude Memory — lightweight signposts. One entry per feature, pointing to a spine note. Loaded automatically every session.
2. Obsidian Vault — the full knowledge base. Spine notes link to fixes, features, architecture docs, plans, and decisions via [[wikilinks]].

When Claude needs context on a feature, it reads the signpost (instant), then the spine note (feature overview), then the specific doc it needs. Three hops, each narrowing the scope. No vector search, no embeddings — just structured navigation.

What Makes It Self-Developing

Spine doesn't just store knowledge — it grows itself:

• /spine-capture — After you complete work, this skill auto-drafts an Obsidian doc from your commits. Detects the repo, matches the feature, applies the naming conventions, updates the spine note with wikilinks. You review and approve.
• /spine-health — On-demand vault audit. Finds undocumented commits, stale docs, duplicate notes, broken wikilinks, missing tags, and memory sync issues.
• Post-commit hook — After significant commits (20+ lines, 2+ files), silently tracks them in pending-commits.json for later batch capture.
• Status line — Optional bone avatar (🦴) showing vault activity in your Claude Code status bar.
• Session-start scanner — /spine-scan runs automatically when you open Claude Code. Auto-fixes broken wikilinks, missing tags, and orphan docs. Detects undocumented commits and reports them in a non-blocking banner.
• Silent commit tracking — Every significant commit is tracked automatically. No nudges, no noise.
• Batch capture — At session end, /spine-capture --batch groups all tracked commits by feature, drafts docs, and presents them for your approval.
• Curator log — Every auto-action is recorded in {vault}/.spine/curator-log.md for full transparency.

The vault gets richer with every commit. The richer it gets, the better Claude performs on your codebase. Compound interest for engineering knowledge.

Install

claude plugin marketplace add Nodewarrior/spine
claude plugin install spine

Then inside Claude Code:

/spine-init ~/Documents/MyVault

This creates your vault, sets up the Obsidian graph colors, and scaffolds the first repo and feature.

Already have an Obsidian vault? /spine-init detects existing vaults and runs in adopt mode — it adds the config and graph colors without touching your files.

Quick Start

# 1. Install the plugin
claude plugin marketplace add Nodewarrior/spine
claude plugin install spine

# 2. Initialize your vault
# In Claude Code:
/spine-init ~/Documents/MyVault

# 3. Open the vault in Obsidian
# File → Open Vault → choose your vault folder
# Press Cmd+G to see the color-coded graph

# 4. Start working. After a fix or feature:
/spine-capture

# 5. Periodically audit your vault:
/spine-health

Graph Colors

Spine tags every doc with a type/* frontmatter tag. Obsidian's graph view renders them as color-coded nodes: