Tagging Convention

Tags are how you filter across folders. The folder is where a note lives; tags are what it’s about. A note can have multiple tags.

Tag categories

Folder tags (always include)

Mirror the top-level folder the note lives in. Enables filtering all notes in a section regardless of subfolder.

Folder	Tag
infra/	infra
databases/	databases
go/	go
nodejs/	nodejs
design/	system_design
distributed_systems/	distributed_systems
auth/	auth
networking/	networking
devops/	devops

Topic tags (always include)

The specific technology or concept the note covers.

Tag	Use for
kubernetes	K8s, k9s, kubectl
docker	Docker, Docker Compose, Docker Swarm
rabbitmq	RabbitMQ, message queues
observability	Grafana, Jaeger, tracing, metrics
redis	Redis, caching, distributed locks
mongodb	MongoDB, Mongoose
database	General DB concepts, SQL Server, PostgreSQL
protobuf	Protobuf, gRPC definitions
auth	OpenFGA, ReBAC, IAM, JWT
networking	DNS, TCP, VPN, ICMP
distributed_systems	Concurrency, distributed patterns
system_design	Architecture patterns, design decisions
typescript	TypeScript-specific patterns
express	Express.js patterns

Company tag (include when note is work-specific)

Tag	Use for
beep	Learned at or specific to Beep
palantir	Learned at or specific to Palantir

Context tags (include when relevant)

Tag	Use for
incident	Root cause analysis, post-mortems, bug investigations
open	Unresolved questions or things to investigate further
interview	Interview prep notes
onboarding	Ramp-up notes for a new role

Tracking open questions

Add open to any note where something is still unclear or needs investigation. All open notes are automatically listed at open — this is your active learning queue.

Example frontmatter

---
title: Redis SETNX Deduplication
tags:
  - databases      # folder tag
  - redis          # topic tag
  - distributed_systems  # secondary topic
  - beep           # company tag
  - incident       # context tag (was a prod bug)
---

Rules

1. Always include the folder tag and at least one topic tag
2. Include beep or palantir if the note is work-specific or the example came from work
3. Use incident for any note that originated from debugging a real issue
4. Keep tags lowercase with underscores — no spaces, no camelCase
5. Don’t over-tag — 3–5 tags per note is plenty