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Cyberbaser
🧠 Research & Foundations phase — building the KB from the ground up. See the roadmap →

2026-04-13 · Vault collaboration mining

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What we mined

Section titled “What we mined”

Collaboration in Obsidian/Collaboration in Obsidian.md — organized into four categories of collaboration approaches.

Four collaboration models found

Section titled “Four collaboration models found”

1. File-level sync (P2P)

Section titled “1. File-level sync (P2P)”
  • Pears protocol — P2P directory sync where participants control their own vault, synced via protocol. “Mount” multiple directories and use Obsidian on top.
  • SyncTrayzor — file-level sync tool

Relevance: This is the “everyone has their own copy” model. Compatible with git-based workflows but doesn’t solve real-time editing.

2. Live collaborative editing

Section titled “2. Live collaborative editing”
  • Peerdraft — secure real-time collaboration for Obsidian (named in the vault tech stack)
  • screen.garden — screen sharing / remote pairing
  • obsidian-multiplayer — real-time collaboration plugin (community)
  • Self-hosted LiveSync (formerly obsidian-livesync) — CouchDB-based sync with conflict resolution
  • Etherpad — classic real-time collaborative document editor

Relevance: This is the “edit with someone live” model from the vault vision. Peerdraft is the closest existing solution.

3. Git-based collaboration

Section titled “3. Git-based collaboration”
  • Samba — network file sharing
  • Filestash — self-hosted web file client
  • Sturdy — real-time version control (open-source, for startups)
  • GitLab, Gitea, Gogs — self-hosted git platforms
  • Radicle — P2P, decentralized git forge

Relevance: This is the “everyone uses git” model. Most mature, most boring. Works today with obsidian-git plugin.

4. Workaround methods (VS Code, GitHub.dev)

Section titled “4. Workaround methods (VS Code, GitHub.dev)”
  • Cryptpad — encrypted collaborative editor
  • Etherpad — (again)
  • VS Code LiveShare — if vault is in GitHub, use github.dev editor + LiveShare plugin
  • github.dev — browser-based VS Code for any GitHub repo

Relevance: These are “good enough” solutions that don’t require any custom infrastructure. A contributor can use github.dev to edit any file in the vault right now.

The tension

Section titled “The tension”

The vault vision wants live anonymous collaborative editing (like Google Docs). The current cyberbaser architecture assumes git-only async workflows (PRs, commits, branches).

These are fundamentally different:

  • Git-only = each edit is a commit. Conflicts resolve via merge. No real-time feedback. Simple.
  • Real-time = edits are characters/operations. Conflicts resolve via CRDT/OT. Requires a sync server or P2P. Complex.

The question for R05: does v1 include real-time collab, or is it a v2+ feature?

Arguments for deferring real-time to v2+:

  • Git-only is already functional (obsidian-git + GitHub PRs + Decap Open Authoring)
  • CRDT infrastructure is a significant build (sync server, conflict resolution, presence indicators)
  • The vault vision treats it as a nice-to-have (“edit WITH someone”), not the core value prop

Arguments for including real-time in v1:

  • It’s the feature that makes cyberbaser feel like “the future” vs “another static site generator”
  • Peerdraft exists as a ready-made solution (but only works inside Obsidian, not on the web)
  • BlockSuite/OctoBase from AFFiNE provide CRDT-native content editing that could be adapted

Recommendation (preliminary)

Section titled “Recommendation (preliminary)”

Defer real-time collab to v2. Focus v1 on making the three async paths (Obsidian+Git, Web CMS, GitHub direct) excellent. The CRDT/sync research from the vault (50+ links in Development file) is valuable future context but shouldn’t block v1.

Exception: if github.dev + LiveShare counts as “live collab,” it works TODAY with zero infrastructure. Document it as the v1 workaround.

Section titled “Related”