Turn your Obsidian vault into an interactive knowledge graph. Parses every markdown note, extracts structural relationships, runs graph algorithms, and renders a force-directed visualization you can explore in your browser.
No account required. No cloud. Just your vault.
bun install && bun run build
bun run local ~/path/to/vault
# → http://localhost:4321Cartographer reads your .md files and builds a typed knowledge graph from the structure already in your notes:
| Edge type | Source |
|---|---|
| Wikilinks | [[note]] references between notes |
| Tags | Shared #tags (IDF-weighted — rare tags score higher) |
| Folder co-membership | Notes in the same directory |
| Temporal adjacency | Notes created within ±7 days of each other |
Then it runs four graph algorithms on the result:
| Algorithm | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| PageRank | Which notes are most structurally important |
| Louvain community detection | How your notes naturally cluster into topics |
| Connected components | Which groups of notes are isolated from each other |
| Clustering coefficient | How tightly interconnected each note's neighbors are |
All computation happens at startup. A 3,000-note vault parses and enriches in ~1.5 seconds.
The visualization is built on Sigma.js with a custom ForceAtlas3 layout engine — a Float32Array-based reimplementation of ForceAtlas2 that lays out 8,500 nodes in under 2 seconds.
Navigation
- ⌘K to search across all notes (title, path, tags, frontmatter)
- Click a node to open the inspector panel — rendered note content, PageRank rank, degree, community ID, bridge score
- Seed a note to expand its structural neighborhood (1–3 hop BFS)
Analysis
- Community pressure sidebar shows how the visible neighborhood clusters
- Data Lab table view with sortable columns and CSV export
- Edge legend with type counts and toggle visibility per type
Layout options
- ForceAtlas 3 (default — fast convergence, good cluster separation)
- Fruchterman-Reingold, Circular, Concentric, Grid
- Toggle color encoding: note type vs. Louvain community
- Toggle size encoding: uniform vs. PageRank vs. degree
The layout engine deserves its own mention. ForceAtlas2 is the standard for graph visualization, but the reference JavaScript implementation takes 18+ seconds on a large vault. Our ForceAtlas3 port uses flat Float32Array matrices (10 floats/node, 3 floats/edge) and runs the same layout in under 2 seconds — a 9× speedup with equivalent visual quality.
The implementation includes Barnes-Hut optimization for O(n log n) repulsion, adaptive convergence per node, and optional LinLog mode. It runs in a Web Worker so the UI stays responsive during layout.
ForceAtlas2 (graphology): 18.2s (8,500 nodes)
ForceAtlas3 (this repo): 1.9s (8,500 nodes, same quality)
Source: apps/atlas-ui/src/core/forceatlas3.ts — 590 lines, zero dependencies.
apps/atlas-ui/
serve.ts ← Local server (this is what `bun run local` runs)
src/core/ ← Parser, graph builder, PageRank, Louvain, FA3
src/frontend/ ← Browser app (Sigma.js + controls)
bun install
bun run build
bun run local ~/path/to/vaultMIT — see LICENSE.