Understanding Vaults

A vault is just a folder on your computer. That’s it. Atlas reads and writes plain markdown files inside it — there’s no proprietary database, no hidden format, no lock-in.

Your notes are plain text

Every note in Atlas is a standard .md (Markdown) file. You can open any of them in Notepad, VS Code, Obsidian, iA Writer, or any other text editor. If you ever stop using Atlas, your notes are right there, completely intact and readable by anything.

This is a deliberate choice. Your knowledge belongs to you.

What Atlas adds to your vault

When you set up a vault, Atlas creates an atlas/ subfolder to store its own data. You’ll see these subfolders inside it:

Folder	What’s inside
atlas/identity/	Your user profile and Atlas’s personality files
atlas/memory/	Long-term memory, session summaries, automation configs
atlas/rules/	Behavior rules and the list of enabled tools
atlas/network/	CRM data — people, organizations, topics
atlas/logs/	Agent action audit logs

You can read and edit most of these files directly. They’re markdown too.

Note

Atlas will never modify files outside the atlas/ subfolder unless you explicitly ask it to (like creating or editing a note).

Multiple vaults

You can have more than one vault — a personal vault, a work vault, a research vault, whatever fits your life. Atlas tracks your recent vaults so you can switch quickly.

To switch vaults:

1. Open Settings (gear icon)
2. Go to the Vault section
3. Click a recent vault or browse for a new folder

Each vault has its own atlas/ subfolder and its own memory, identity, and settings.

Your vault is portable

Because a vault is just a folder, you can:

• Back it up — copy the folder to an external drive or cloud storage
• Sync with Git — version-control your notes with a simple git init
• Sync with iCloud, Dropbox, or Syncthing — keep notes in sync across machines
• Use with Obsidian — Atlas and Obsidian can share the same vault folder (both read the same .md files)
• Move it — drag the folder anywhere, then point Atlas to the new location

Tip

If you use Obsidian, you can open the same vault in both apps. Atlas and Obsidian both use wiki-links and standard markdown, so they play nicely together. Just be aware that Atlas stores its data in atlas/ — you may want to exclude that folder from Obsidian’s search or graph if it clutters things up.

Recommended vault locations

Keep your vault somewhere stable and easy to back up:

• ~/Documents/MyVault
• ~/Dropbox/Notes
• ~/iCloudDrive/Atlas

Avoid placing your vault inside system folders, Program Files, or inside the Atlas app bundle itself.