Vault

A vault is a regular folder on your computer — nothing more mysterious than that. You choose where it lives. Everything Trunkbase creates goes inside it: your notes, their details, extracted images. Open it in File Explorer and there's no mystery; copy it to a USB stick and everything comes with it.

What's inside

My Vault/
├── Research/
│   ├── quarterly-report.md          ← a note (plain Markdown)
│   ├── quarterly-report.meta.yml    ← its details
│   └── quarterly-report.assets/     ← its extracted images
├── .trash/                          ← deleted records, restorable
└── .trunkbase/                      ← the rebuildable cache

Your files are the source of truth. The notes, details files, and assets are your data. Everything in the hidden .trunkbase folder — search index, knowledge graph, thumbnails — is a derived copy that Trunkbase rebuilds from your files whenever needed. Delete that entire folder and reopen the vault: Trunkbase notices, shrugs, and reconstructs it.

What this design buys you

• Portable — copy the vault folder to a new machine, open it, done. The cache rebuilds on arrival.
• Yours to edit elsewhere — open a note in Obsidian or any text editor. Trunkbase spots outside edits and updates its index to match.
• Safe to back up — any tool that can copy a folder can protect your entire knowledge base.
• More than one — create separate vaults (work, personal) and switch from the vault name at the top of the window.

Deleting is forgiving

Trashing a note moves the whole record into .trash, restorable with a preview from the Trash manager. Even permanent delete isn't a trapdoor — it sends the record to the Windows Recycle Bin, not into the void. Destructive actions always ask first.