Obfluence: A Developer's Confluence Replacement in Obsidian

May 29, 2025

What if Confluence had local-first markdown, full control, and an actual soul? Like many developers, I’ve wrestled with documentation platforms and eventually built my own solution using Obsidian.

🧠 Obfluence: A Developer’s Confluence Replacement in Obsidian

“What if Confluence had local-first markdown, full control, and an actual soul?”

Like many developers, I’ve wrestled with documentation. Not the writing — the platforms.

We’ve all been there: a slow-loading Confluence page, a broken editor, the vague dread of Atlassian outages. Eventually, I hit my limit. I needed something faster, local, markdown-native — but still structured and powerful.

That’s how Obfluence started.

🛠️ The Goal

I didn’t want another wiki — I wanted something modular, offline, version-controlled, and developer-centric.

So I mapped out what makes Confluence useful, and what makes it painful. The folder structure was good. The page types were clear. But the performance, UX, and editing? Not so much.

🧩 The Build

I began by mirroring a logical structure:

• 00_Product — specs, backlog, roadmap
• 01_Architecture — diagrams, decisions
• 02_Release Notes — changelogs
• 03_Operations — CI/CD, infra, monitoring
• 04_Working Session Minutes
• 05_Meeting Notes
• 06_Scrum Foundations
• 07_Knowledge Base
• 08_Open Business Question Log

Each folder uses a dynamic _index.md to render contents.

🔌 Essential Plugins

✅ Templater

• Automates note creation
• Smart prompts and reusable scaffolds

📊 Dataview

• Generates dynamic dashboards and indexes

🧩 MetaEdit

• Inline frontmatter control (status, owner, tags)

➕ Bonus

• QuickAdd, Advanced Tables, Buttons, Folder Notes

More details in: Obfluence_Suggested_Plugins.md

💡 Lessons Learned

• Metadata consistency makes everything easier
• Recursion with Dataview can be powerful — and tricky
• A consistent template style saves hours
• Structure improves memory and reuse

💬 Q&A

Q: Can teams use this?
Yes — with Obsidian Sync or Git. It’s team-friendly, local-first, and Git-friendly.

Q: What makes Obfluence different?
It mimics Confluence’s power using only markdown, folders, and smart plugins — with no lock-in or cloud reliance.

Q: Can I use this for meeting notes or guides?
Yes. Templates support everything from retros to runbooks to system diagrams.

🧠 Technical Appendix

• Dynamic Indexes: Auto-rendered _index.md files
• Templates: Over 30 templater-powered files
• Dashboards: Custom views of metadata across your system
• Frontmatter:

  tags: [template]
  status: draft
  system: architecture
  owner: "@you"
  

🔗 Try Obfluence

• GitHub: https://github.com/yourusername/obfluence
• License: MIT
• Included: README, Dashboard, Suggested Plugins, and more