Readwise

Readwise is a highlight-sync service paired with Readwise Reader, a read-later app. Together they cover the inbound-reading half of my knowledge-management setup: save something to read, highlight while reading, and let those highlights land in the vault automatically instead of a manual export step I’d eventually stop doing.

Role in the stack

Readwise/Reader is the capture and read-later layer — save via the reader app, a browser clipper, an e-reader, or a share sheet, then highlight while reading. Obsidian is where the actual thinking happens on top of those highlights; Readwise’s job ends at getting the raw material into the vault, not processing it into linked notes.

How I use it

• Sync into a dedicated, externally-owned folder — and I never hand-edit it. The sync plugin writes highlights into their own space in the vault; treating that folder as read-only (linking to or copying out of it rather than editing in place) means the sync can’t clobber a note I wrote by hand, and a note I wrote by hand can’t accidentally break the sync.
• One inbound-reading surface. Consolidating read-later into a single app rather than splitting it across an RSS reader and a separate read-later app kills a recurring “where did I save this” moment.
• Capture stays dumb; the thinking happens downstream. Highlighting something is cheap and shouldn’t require a decision about where it fits — that decision happens later, when a highlight actually gets pulled into a permanent note.

See Obsidian for where captured highlights actually turn into linked notes.