Great — this is a solid long-term setup, and doing it via Quartz + GitHub Pages is exactly the right call for a proper digital garden.

I’ll walk you through this like a clean system build — no assumptions, no fluff.

🧠 What You’re Building (Mental Model)

You will have:

• Obsidian vault → where you write notes

• Quartz (v4) → converts notes → website

• GitHub repo → hosts your site

• GitHub Pages → makes it live on the internet

Flow:

Obsidian → Quartz build → GitHub → Live Website

⚙️ STEP 0 — Install Required Tools

You need 3 things:

1. Install Git

• Download: https://git-scm.com

• Install with default settings

2. Install Node.js (VERY IMPORTANT)

• Download LTS version: https://nodejs.org

• This powers Quartz

3. GitHub Account

• Create if you don’t have one

📁 STEP 1 — Prepare Your Obsidian Vault

Inside your vault:

Recommended structure

/content
  notes.md
  ideas.md

Later Quartz will read from /content

👉 If your vault is already messy → we can restructure later, don’t worry.

🚀 STEP 2 — Install Quartz

Open Command Prompt (CMD) and run:

git clone https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz.git my-garden
cd my-garden
npm install

Now you have a Quartz project.

🔗 STEP 3 — Connect Quartz to Your Obsidian Vault

Inside my-garden folder:

Find:

/content

👉 Replace it with your Obsidian notes:

Option A (BEST)

Move your vault inside Quartz:

my-garden/content = your vault notes

Option B

Keep vault separate → sync via copy (less ideal)

▶️ STEP 4 — Test Locally

Run:

npx quartz build --serve

Open browser:

http://localhost:8080

👉 You should see your notes as a website.

🎨 STEP 5 — Customize (Important Early Step)

Edit:

quartz.config.ts

Change:

title: "Your Digital Garden",
baseUrl: "yourusername.github.io",

You can also:

• Enable graph view

• Change theme

• Add backlinks

☁️ STEP 6 — Push to GitHub

Create repo:

Go to GitHub → New repo:

yourusername.github.io

Then in CMD:

git init
git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"
git branch -M main
git remote add origin https://github.com/yourusername/yourusername.github.io.git
git push -u origin main

🌍 STEP 7 — Enable GitHub Pages

Go to repo → Settings → Pages

Set:

Source → GitHub Actions

Quartz already includes deployment workflow.

⚡ STEP 8 — Deploy

Run:

npx quartz build

Push changes:

git add .
git commit -m "deploy"
git push

👉 After ~1–2 minutes your site will be live at:

https://yourusername.github.io

🔁 STEP 9 — Your Daily Workflow

Whenever you write notes:

npx quartz build
git add .
git commit -m "update notes"
git push

🧠 IMPORTANT BEST PRACTICES (From Experience)

1. Use Obsidian links heavily

[[note name]]

Quartz thrives on this.

2. Keep notes atomic

One idea = one note

3. Avoid folders initially

Use links instead → better graph

4. Use frontmatter (later upgrade)

---
title: My Note
tags: [idea, learning]
---

⚠️ Common Problems (You WILL face these)

❌ "npm not recognized"

→ Node not installed properly

❌ Blank site

→ content folder empty or wrong path

❌ Git push error

→ auth issue → use GitHub token instead of password

🧭 Where This Can Go Next

Once this is working, we can upgrade:

• Auto-deploy on note save

• Custom domain

• Search bar improvements

• Tag pages

• RSS feed

• Analytics

👍 What I Need From You Next

Tell me:

1. Do you already have an Obsidian vault with notes?

2. Or are we starting from scratch?

3. Are you comfortable using CMD or want GUI-based Git help?

Based on that, I’ll refine this into a clean, minimal, no-friction workflow tailored for you.