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Build Your Own Federated Garden

A practical guide to publishing your personal knowledge on the open web

Companion Guide

This note accompanies the talk Federating Your Second Brain. Start there for context, come here for implementation.

🌱 Start Small

Don't wait for the perfect setup. Start with what you have.

The Minimum Viable Garden

You can begin with:

  1. A folder of Markdown files (even just 3-5 notes)
  2. A GitHub account (free)
  3. A static site host (Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages—all free)
  4. 30 minutes

The goal isn't perfection—it's permeability. Let one idea breathe in public before building elaborate infrastructure.

Progression Path

Most successful gardens evolve through stages:

Stage 0: Private vault

Stage 1: Single public page

Stage 2: Selective garden

Stage 3: Federated network

Stage 4: Living ecosystem

Start here: Choose one note that you'd feel comfortable making public. Not your best work—just something useful.

🛠️ Core Tools

Option A: Obsidian → Digital Garden (Easiest)

Best for: Obsidian users who want one-click publishing

What you need:

Setup (< 20 minutes):

  1. Install Digital Garden plugin in Obsidian
  2. Follow plugin's guided setup wizard
  3. Adds dg-publish: true to frontmatter of notes you want public
  4. Click "Publish" button in plugin
  5. Auto-deploys to your custom domain

Pros:

Cons:

Option B: Quartz (Most Powerful)

Best for: Those who want full control and modern features

What you need:

Setup:

git clone https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz.git
cd quartz
npm i
npx quartz create
# Follow prompts, point to your vault folder
npx quartz build --serve

Pros:

Cons:

Resources:

Option C: Jekyll / Hugo (Classic Static Sites)

Best for: Those who want maximum control or are already familiar with static site generators

Jekyll:

Hugo:

Pros:

Cons:

Best for: Writers who want ActivityPub integration out-of-the-box

What you need:

Features:

Pros:

Cons:

Resources:

📤 Publish in Layers

Think of your publishing strategy as concentric circles of disclosure:

Layer 1: Private Vault (Everything)

Layer 2: Semi-Public Garden (Selected Notes)

Layer 3: Newsletters (Polished Essays)

Layer 4: Social Syndication (Excerpts & Threads)

Layer 5: Archives & Longevity (Permanent Records)

Key principle: Each layer links back to the source of truth (your vault or garden). Never orphan your best thinking inside platform-specific formats.

🌐 Federation Possibilities

RSS: The Universal Connector

Every garden should have RSS feeds:

Why RSS matters:

How to add:

What they are: Notification when someone links to your note from their site

How they work:

  1. Someone writes a post mentioning your URL
  2. Their site sends a "webmention" ping to yours
  3. Your site displays "X responded to this note"

Implementation:

Example workflow:

ActivityPub: Your Garden as a Fediverse Actor

The dream: Your digital garden itself has a Mastodon-style presence

Current reality: Emerging tooling, requires technical setup

Options:

  1. WriteFreely blog with your garden link in bio
  2. Bridgy Fed – Experimental ActivityPub bridge for static sites
  3. Automate toots when you publish (via RSS → Mastodon bot)

Why pursue this:

POSSE: Publish (On) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere

The philosophy:

Example flow:

  1. Publish evergreen note to garden: garden.com/note-123
  2. Copy to newsletter with "Read more" link
  3. Thread on Mastodon with link to full note
  4. All versions link back to living document

Benefits:

📚 Resources & Examples

Gardens to Explore (Inspiration)

Exemplary digital gardens:

Look for:

Technical Resources

Obsidian + Publishing:

Quartz:

Jekyll Gardens:

Hugo:

Federation Tools:

Communities & Learning

Where to ask questions:

Newsletters & Blogs:

🚀 Your Next Steps

Week 1: Explore

Week 2: Set Up

Week 3: Connect

Month 2: Grow

Month 3: Federate

Reflection question: What's the smallest thing you could publish this week that would help someone else?

🤔 Common Questions

"My notes are too messy to publish"

Perfect! That's what makes a garden a garden and not a museum. Use status indicators like 🌱 seedling, 🌿 budding, 🌳 evergreen to signal maturity.

"What if I'm wrong about something?"

Update the note! Add a "Changelog" section or footnote. Digital gardens embrace iterative thinking. You're modeling intellectual humility, which is valuable in itself.

"Nobody will read my notes"

Maybe! But that's not really the point. Gardens are for:

  1. Future-you (searchable external memory)
  2. People with very specific curiosities (findable via search)
  3. Building relationships through ideas, not followers

The "audience" emerges slowly through backlinks and RSS, not virality.

"Is this just blogging with extra steps?"

Sort of! Key differences:

"How do I decide what to publish?"

Start with "useful to someone else, even partially formed." Err on the side of sharing. You can always unpublish later. Notes no one should see:

Otherwise? Plant it and see what grows.

🪴 This note will continue to grow…

As new tools emerge, as I refine my own setup, as others share their workflows—this guide will evolve. Check back periodically, or subscribe via RSS to see updates.

Have questions or tips to add? Reach out:

Related: Federating Your Second Brain • Digital Literacies and Open Knowledge Practices

Tags for discovery: #howto #tutorial #getting-started #obsidian #quartz #jekyll #rss #webmentions #indieweb

Last tended: 2025-11-04