Distillary

Quick Start

2 min read

Quick start

Process your first source into a brain vault in ~15 minutes.

Prerequisites

  • Claude Code — CLI, desktop, or web
  • Python 3.11+
  • An EPUB, PDF, or TXT file

Steps

1. Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/distillary/distillary/main/install.sh | bash
cd ~/distillary

Or install manually:

git clone https://github.com/distillary/distillary.git
cd distillary
pip install pyyaml ebooklib beautifulsoup4 langchain-community pymupdf

2. Start Claude Code

claude

3. Add your first source

/dist:add books/my-book.epub

The pipeline runs automatically:

  • Save chunks permanently (~30 sec)
  • Parallel haiku agents extract claims with backing + passages (~2 min)
  • Haiku agents deduplicate and extract entities (~2 min)
  • Haiku agent adds wikilinks to claim bodies (~1 min)
  • Opus agents group claims into pyramid (~5 min)
  • Haiku agents find lateral connections (~2 min)
  • Python assembles the vault, fixes links, runs doctor

4. Open in Obsidian

Open brain/ as a vault in Obsidian.

  1. Enable Bases core plugin (Settings → Core plugins → Bases)
  2. Enable CSS snippet (Settings → Appearance → CSS snippets → distillary-tags)
  3. Open _index.md — your entry point

5. Explore

/dist:lookup integrity
/dist:status
/dist:doctor
  • Click the root thesis to read the source’s argument
  • Follow [[wikilinks]] to drill deeper
  • Check entity pages — their Referenced by sections are your search engine
  • Open .base files for analytical database views
  • Check backing: fields on claims to see evidence type and strength
  • Check passages: to read the exact source text in the chunk files

6. Add a second source

/dist:add books/second-book.epub

The pipeline runs again. After assembly, it also:

  • Maps concepts between both sources automatically
  • Creates bridge entities in brain/shared/concepts/
  • Updates the brain index

Your brain now has two sources connected by bridge concepts.

7. Ask questions

/dist:research what do both sources say about integrity?
/dist:lookup fear
/dist:compare barnum and kiyosaki

The deep research agent:

  • Searches all sources
  • Follows backlink chains
  • Checks evidence quality (backing type + strength)
  • Verifies claims against source chunks
  • Writes a structured answer with citations

8. Save insights

/dist:note save the last research
/dist:annotate I disagree with the claim about debt
/dist:explore

9. Manage brains

/dist:brains list
/dist:brains add /path/to/another-brain/
/dist:sources

See Managing multiple brains.

What’s next

Graph View

Backlinks