Published: October 2026
TL;DR: Second Brain is a Grok Bot template that gives you a second brain, one place for everything you want to remember. It keeps your notes in an Obsidian vault, and it checks in with your other bots a few times a week. Nothing gets lost between bots or projects. Want it on your own devices too? Add Obsidian Sync, and you can open any note and fix it yourself.
I have a lot going on. Properties I manage, a few side hustles, selling trading cards, personal matters and a running list of things I’m learning. Plus a team of Grok Bots, each handling one piece of it.
Each bot remembers its own work. None of them know about the rest. The Second Brain Grok Bot fixes that. It’s a ready-made assistant you install with one link and talk to in chat, and it keeps everything in one place my other bots can read.
Why Obsidian
Obsidian is a notes app that saves every note as a plain text file in a folder, called a vault. Notes link to each other, so related things are easy to find.
I picked it over Google Docs or OneDrive files because I didn’t want to keep filling up all those docs. I also like to go through my second brain, find things and edit them myself when I need to. That’s much easier in Obsidian than in a database.
A database is faster for a coding second brain, the kind that stores facts about code for software bots. Mine is mostly personal: remembering things across bots and projects. For that, Obsidian has been the best.
How it works
All your Grok Bots share one cloud computer. Second Brain runs Obsidian there and keeps the vault on that computer. Obsidian Sync, Obsidian’s paid add-on, isn’t required. I use it because it keeps my vault up to date on all my devices. A note the bot writes shows up everywhere, and a fix I make reaches the bot.
Once it’s set up, it runs on its own. I never have to approve anything.
- Inbox filing: the Inbox folder is for focus time, when you’re working straight in Obsidian. A few times each weekday, the bot files those notes into the right folder, unchanged, and logs what it moved. Nothing new? It stays quiet.
- Bot check-ins: a few times a week (I run mine three times a week), it asks your other bots what changed and adds their replies as dated sections in each bot’s notes.
- Weekly cleanup: once a week, it tidies up the vault.
- Vault Map and ownership note: it keeps a Vault Map, one note on how your vault is organized, and an ownership note on which bot owns which notes. It updates both as things change.
It backs up before it edits, adds to notes instead of overwriting them and works through the running Obsidian app. Passwords, API keys (the codes apps use to log in to each other) and account numbers never go in the vault.
In my setup, my other bots also read the vault for context. One keeps a list there of what needs my attention, and the rest check it. You can wire up the same thing through the check-ins and the ownership note.
Obsidian resources
There are tons of videos and guides for doing more with Obsidian. Three to start with:
- Linking Your Thinking with Nick Milo: one of my favorite resources for linking notes and structuring a vault. Start with Give Me 15 Minutes. I’ll Teach You 80% of Obsidian.
- How to Migrate to Obsidian Bases from Dataview by Practical PKM: what Bases, Obsidian’s built-in database views, can do compared with the Dataview plugin.
- How I use Obsidian by Steph Ango, Obsidian’s CEO: a simple system, plus a free vault template you can copy.
How to get started
Your first chat with the bot walks you through setup.
- Install the template:
Get the Second Brain bot - Set up Obsidian: the bot installs Obsidian on the shared cloud computer, and you make a vault with an Inbox folder.
- Add Sync if you want it: turn on Obsidian Sync, take over the bot’s desktop, sign in yourself and connect the same remote vault you use on your devices.
- Give it your notes: you don’t tell it how to organize. It figures that out by talking to your other bots. Hand it everything you want organized or pulled from. I had mine look across my email, Google Drive and OneDrive, pull out important info and projects, and summarize them for me to approve before anything went in.
- Pick your bots and routines: choose which bots report to it and when each routine runs. It builds the ownership note.
- Watch the first sweep: setup ends with one live Inbox sweep.
Day to day, talk to your main Grok Bot, the one with the star. That’s your real intake. Something very specific? Send it straight to Second Brain in chat.
Why it’s worth it
Every bot I add makes the second brain more useful. They all read from the same vault and write back to it, so nothing I tell one bot gets lost when I switch to another. And because it’s plain Obsidian notes, it’s still mine if I ever stop using the bots.
