Quartz Second Brain: Publish Notes and Keep Work Current

A Quartz second brain uses linked Markdown notes as the source for a published website. Start with a small, deliberately public collection, then keep private source material and active work in a separate record. fenbs can hold that project record, including reviewed links, decisions, and the next step your connected assistant should read.

Quartz is a static-site generator↗ (opens in a new tab): it turns Markdown, a plain text format for notes, into web pages. Publishing your notes helps other people use them, but a public page rarely tells a collaborator what you are still checking or which draft has approval.

How do you start with a small publishing workflow?

1. Choose one topic you can explain without private examples. Write a short index note describing who the collection is for and where a new reader should begin.
2. Prepare a separate collection containing only notes and attachments you intend to publish. Follow the current Quartz setup instructions for your computer and hosting service.
3. Create a few useful notes with descriptive titles, source links, and links to related explanations. Preview the site and check every page as a reader would.
4. Review the complete publishing output, then publish through your chosen host. Save the public URL and your remaining maintenance work in your project record.

For example, a designer might publish explanations of layout principles while keeping client feedback and approval notes elsewhere. Start with the principles you have actually used. A short collection with clear examples gives a reader more help than an enormous collection of disconnected highlights.

What belongs in the public notes?

Publish explanations that still make sense without your private workspace. Each note should answer a specific question, show the reasoning in your own words, and point to its sources. A useful title says what the reader will learn, such as “Why narrow text columns are easier to scan,” rather than “Reading notes 17.”

Quartz processes Markdown in its content folder, and its authoring guide↗ (opens in a new tab) describes titles, descriptions, links, and other page metadata. Use these fields consistently. Keep a publication date separate from the date you last checked the evidence, because editing a typo does not mean you have reviewed the claim.

Add a short sentence around each important link explaining the connection. “Read this next for an example” helps more than a bare list of filenames. The broader second brain guide explains the knowledge system behind the collection; this workflow focuses on its public publishing surface.

How do you keep private material out of the website?

Treat everything copied into the publishing collection as material that needs review. Check screenshots, filenames, copied quotations, image descriptions, and document properties as well as paragraphs. A note can be harmless while its attached image shows a private message or an account number.

Quartz documents draft filtering and explicit publishing in its private-pages guide↗ (opens in a new tab). That guide also warns that non-Markdown files can be included in the output regardless of the note filter, and a public source repository can expose material excluded from the website. A publishing filter is therefore only one part of the boundary.

Use a separate public collection when the consequences of copying the wrong attachment would matter. Review the generated files and the source repository before sharing either. Keep client information, credentials, interview recordings, and unfinished agreements outside that collection. Removing a page later does not undo a copy someone already downloaded.

How do you turn scattered notes into useful connections?

Link notes when one helps explain, qualify, or apply another. A note about typography might point to a reading example and to the accessibility guidance that shaped it. Explain whether the linked page provides evidence, a competing view, or an application, so the reader does not have to infer your reasoning.

Create an index around reader questions rather than making every page equally prominent. Someone exploring a topic needs a route through it. Someone returning to a specific fact needs a descriptive title and a reliable source. Test both routes before spending time arranging a beautiful network of links.

If you maintain the source collection in Obsidian, the Obsidian second brain guide covers that private note workflow. Keep the publishing choice separate: a useful local note can remain private even when it would fit neatly into the public collection.

Where do updates and unfinished work live?

Keep maintenance actions in a project record: check a source, replace an example, fix a broken link, or review a page after its underlying guidance changes. Give each action a specific outcome. “Improve accessibility notes” is difficult to finish; “Check the cited contrast guidance and update the example” has a clear stopping point.

Your published explanation and your project decision serve different purposes. The page might explain several hosting approaches while the project record says which one you chose and why. Avoid publishing an internal decision merely because it is the most recent note. Save the public URLs and their status in fenbs Links and listings, alongside the work needed to keep them accurate.

How to do this with fenbs?

1. Create a free account, free for one person with no credit card, and add a project for the published collection.
2. Add the site and reviewed reference URLs to Links and listings. Record what each link is for and whether its destination still needs a check.
3. Add tasks for specific updates. Record the publishing boundary a person chose in Decisions and rules, including what must stay outside the public collection.
4. Connect a supported assistant using Integrations. Ask it to read the project context before helping and save progress with the last checked page and the next action before stopping.

fenbs does not publish a Quartz site or import its notes. If all you need is a personal public notebook, Quartz and your existing editor may be enough. A separate work record becomes useful when reviews, decisions, or handoffs keep getting lost; the AI second brain guide explains that distinction.

How can you tell whether the setup is working?

Open the site without your private notes and follow a question from the index to an explanation and its evidence. Then reopen the project record after a break. You should be able to identify the current publication, the last review, and one concrete next action without reconstructing your previous session.

If a reader gets lost, improve the route or the explanation. If you get lost, improve the checkpoint. Those are separate fixes. The second-brain topic hub has related workflows when your main difficulty is organizing the private collection rather than maintaining its public pages.