Philosophy of Quartz

A garden should be a true hypertext

The garden is the web as topology. Every walk through the garden creates new paths, new meanings, and when we add things to the garden we add them in a way that allows many future, unpredicted relationships.

(The Garden and the Stream)

structure:

• non-linear:
  • rejects chronological and hierarchical file cabinets
  • rejects folder-first systems such as Notion
  • rejects formal systems such as Zettelkasten
  • avoids high upfront organization friction
• rhizomatic:
  • lets insight emerge from chaos
  • favors organic relationships over imposed order

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A garden should be shared

purpose:

• publish digital gardens to the web
• create public feedback loops
• refine ideas through collective intelligence

“[One] who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but [they] also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important.” — Richard Hamming

core_goal:

• make sharing digital gardens free and simple

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A garden should be your own

control_levels:

• content_only:
  • edit only the content folder
• basic_configuration:
  • edit plugins and components in quartz.config.yaml
  • avoid source-code changes
• full_customization:
  • edit plugins
  • edit components
  • edit the build process

positioning:

• agentic software
• opinionated defaults
• no dictated usage workflow