Table of Contents
Digital Garden Cultivator
Design, manage, and evolve digital gardens as living knowledge bases. Digital gardens are interconnected note collections that grow organically, emphasizing evolution over perfection.
What It Is
A digital garden approach to knowledge management that:
- Builds dynamic knowledge bases that evolve over time
- Connects notes through bidirectional links
- Incubates ideas before formalizing as documentation
- Creates discovery paths for information navigation
- Tracks content maturity and maintenance needs
Quick Start
Calculate Garden Metrics
python scripts/garden_metrics.py path/to/garden.json --format brief
Verification: Run python --version to verify Python environment.
Output Formats
json - Full metrics as JSONbrief - One-line summaryprometheus - Prometheus exposition format
When To Use
- Building dynamic knowledge bases that evolve over time
- Connecting notes, skills, and palaces through bidirectional links
- Incubating ideas before formalizing as documentation
- Creating discovery paths for navigating information
- Managing content lifecycle (seedling → growing → evergreen)
When NOT To Use
- Creating memory palace
structures - use memory-palace-architect
- Evaluating new knowledge
- Creating memory palace
structures - use memory-palace-architect
- Evaluating new knowledge
Content Maturity Levels
| Level | Status | Description |
|---|
| Seedling | New/rough | Early ideas, incomplete thoughts |
| Growing | Developing | Being actively refined |
| Evergreen | Mature | Stable, well-developed content |
Core Workflow
- Collect Sources - Gather notes, bookmarks, ideas
- Plan Structure - Define garden organization
- Create Links - Build bidirectional connections
- Schedule Maintenance - Establish tending cadence
- Document Outputs - Convert mature ideas to formal docs
Garden Layout Template
garden:
sections: ["research", "patterns", "experiments"]
plots:
- name: "My First Note"
purpose: "reference"
maturity: "seedling"
inbound_links: []
outbound_links: []
last_tended: "2025-11-24T10:00:00Z"
Verification: Run the command with --help flag to verify availability.
Maintenance Cadence
| Action | Frequency | Purpose |
|---|
| Quick prune | Every 2 days | Remove dead links, fix typos |
| Stale review | After 7 days inactive | Assess content freshness |
| Archive | After 30 days inactive | Move to archive or delete |
Success Metrics
- Link density - Average links per piece of content
- Bidirectional coverage - % of links that are reciprocal
- Freshness - Time since last update per area
- Maturity ratio - Evergreen content / total content
Detailed Resources
- Linking Patterns: See
modules/linking-patterns.md
- Maintenance Guide: See
modules/maintenance.md
- Metrics Integration: See
modules/maintenance.md
Integration
memory-palace-architect - Host garden within palace structureknowledge-locator - Search garden contentsession-palace-builder - Seed garden from session insights
Troubleshooting
Common Issues
Pre-commit hooks failing
Run SKIP=... git commit to bypass temporarily, then fix issues
Merge conflicts
Use git merge --abort to reset, then resolve conflicts carefully
Commit rejected
Check hook output and fix reported issues before committing again
Exit Criteria
