Sebastien Dubois

The through-line

Across nearly every post, Sebastien Dubois returns to one idea: systems should do the mechanical work so a person can keep doing the thinking. Whether he is talking about Templater scripts, a Kanban plugin, a Discord exporter, or AI transcription, the pattern is the same: build or configure a tool that files, formats, and structures information automatically, but never let it write the notes or make the decisions for you. He states this most directly as a rule for AI in note-taking , but the same instinct drives his plugin and template work, where automation always ends in the note landing, correctly structured, without his manual intervention .

Over the course of these posts the focus narrows from individual mechanics (Templater syntax, CLI triggers) toward a broader system built around note types that drive Kanban boards, calendars, and dashboards . The underlying preoccupation with "file over app" and trusted, curated systems stays constant .

On automating the plumbing, not the thinking

Dubois is explicit that automation has a boundary. "Automate the plumbing, not the thinking... AI should file, format, cross-link, summarize, fetch, clean, maintain. You still write the notes. You must not delegate your own thinking." This extends to how he wants AI agents to behave when generating documentation: "If your coding agent writes documentation for you, give it the rules first." It also shows up in his stance on privacy and local processing, framing subscription-based cloud AI as an unnecessary trade-off when "local AI keeps getting better" .

On file over app

A second theme is his insistence that structure should live in the notes themselves, not in a separate app layer. He built the Kanban Action Planner specifically because "every Kanban plugin I tried for Obsidian had the same fatal flaw: one set of columns, for everything," when in fact "tasks, goals, books, and articles all have different workflows" . The fix is a plugin that "understands note types," giving each "its own statuses, its own columns, its own colors" , with boards that write back to Markdown rather than forking off into a separate tool . He ties this directly to AI-friendliness, noting "why file over app makes all of it AI-friendly" , and describes filing as something that happens invisibly through templates: "the last thing my templates do is rename and move the note to the right folder... I never touch folders" .

On knowledge management as a trusted system

Dubois frames knowledge management not as exhaustive capture but as curation. "Knowledge Management is not about trying to capture everything, but actually leveraging a trusted system to capture what really makes a difference and what is really valuable to hold on to." He extends the same logic to journaling, describing it as a shift in identity rather than a habit: "Journaling as a personal operating system changes the dynamic. It transforms you from someone who just reacts to someone who learns from experiences and is mindful, intentional, effective, creating something meaningful."

On building his own tools

Rather than adopting existing solutions, he repeatedly chooses to build what's missing. Beyond the Kanban plugin , he built "a Discord channel(s) exporter" to "keep up with certain discord servers/channels I'm interested in," designed so exported Markdown can be imported "easily into my Obsidian vault (curated content)" . He treats these tools as shareable by default, publishing the technical-documentation-skill as "Apache-2.0, free, forkable" and floating open-sourcing the Discord exporter "if there's interest" .

From the stage

In the podcast, Dubois discusses a very different chapter: going solo as a game developer on Gladiabots after prior work at Ubisoft and a smaller studio, with "over 12 years of experience" ¹⁶. He describes having "handled almost all aspects of the game's development himself," with one deliberate exception: audio, "the only domain where he decided not to invest time in learning," planning instead "to hire a professional composer for the official release" ¹⁶. This is the one place across all the material where he describes consciously choosing not to build or learn something himself, contrasting with the do-it-yourself pattern seen in his later Obsidian tooling posts.

Takeaways

• When letting a coding agent write documentation, give it rules first via the technical-documentation-skill, installable with one line and free/forkable under Apache-2.0 .
• Templater's whole syntax reduces to one distinction: `<%` prints, `<%*` runs; everything else (choices, dynamic dates, auto-filing) builds on that .
• If a single Kanban board's columns don't fit your different note types (tasks, books, articles), give each type its own statuses and columns rather than forcing one workflow .
• Automate the mechanical steps of note-taking (filing, formatting, cross-linking, summarizing) but keep the actual writing and thinking to yourself .
• Templates can end by renaming and filing a note into the right folder automatically, so folders never need to be touched manually .
• Prefer local AI processing for private dictation and audio/video transcription over subscription services that send conversations to a server .