A structured collection of software engineering notes covering 11 topic areas, designed for learning and interview preparation at a Senior .NET / AI engineering level. Every note follows a strict quality bar: intro in your own words, concrete examples, pitfalls, tradeoffs, interview-style questions, and curated references.
The same notes feed two things: a static website (write in Obsidian → publish with Quartz Syncer → auto-deploy) and a .NET RAG backend — a personal R&D proof of concept for learning retrieval mechanics (ingestion, chunking, embeddings, vector search, reranking, and evaluation) over real content.
| # | Topic | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Programming | Languages, paradigms, .NET ecosystem |
| 02 | Computer Science | Data structures, algorithms, fundamentals |
| 03 | Data Persistence | Databases, EF Core, caching, indexing |
| 04 | Networks | Protocols, HTTP, sockets, DNS |
| 05 | Architecture | Design patterns, system design, DDD |
| 06 | Development Practices | Testing, code quality, CI/CD practices |
| 07 | Security | Auth, encryption, OWASP, identity |
| 08 | SDLC | Software development lifecycle |
| 09 | DevOps | Containers, orchestration, IaC |
| 10 | Cloud | Azure, cloud-native patterns |
| 11 | AI & ML | LLMs, RAG, embeddings, evaluation |
| Directory | What it is | Docs |
|---|---|---|
Vault/ |
The Obsidian vault — where all notes live and are authored | — |
Web/ |
Quartz v5 static site that publishes the vault to devbook.zip | Web/README.md |
Platform/ |
.NET RAG backend (ingestion, vector search, ask agent) + retrieval evaluation over the notes | Platform/DevBook/README.md |
DevBook/
├── Vault/ # The Obsidian vault (open this in Obsidian)
├── Web/ # Quartz v5 site that publishes the vault → Web/README.md
├── Platform/ # .NET RAG backend + evaluation → Platform/DevBook/README.md
├── .scripts/ # Vault maintenance automation (Python)
├── .githooks/ # Pre-commit hook that runs the automations
└── AGENTS.md # AI agent operating contract
- WORKFLOW.md — the SDLC: issues, project board, PR review, and release automation.
- Web/README.md — the content → site pipeline: Obsidian authoring, the Quartz Syncer publish step, the Quartz build, dashboards, customizations, and automations.
- Platform/DevBook/README.md — the .NET RAG backend: ingestion, vector search, the ask agent, and the Evaluation section.
- Platform/DevBook/DevBook.Evaluations/README.md — the RAG retrieval evaluation deep-dive (golden dataset, metrics, methodology).
git clone https://github.com/grafanaKibana/devbook.zip.git
cd devbook.zipFor automatic Quartz export when committing notes, first install Git, Bash, Python 3.9 or later, Node 22/npm and Obsidian desktop. Open Vault/ in Obsidian, allow its bundled community plugins, and enable/register Settings → General → Command line interface. Then run:
bash .scripts/setup.shThis installs the locked Web npm dependencies, enables local Git hooks and configures Syncer’s local destination with Preserve enabled. Git identity and GitHub authentication remain manual; let Datacore finish indexing before committing. Setup does not export, commit or deploy. See new-machine prerequisites and recovery, including the macOS-tested platform boundary.
- Edit notes — open
Vault/as an Obsidian vault; vault commits wait for automatic Quartz export. - Run the website — see Web/README.md (after setup,
cd Web && npm run build && npx quartz build --serve). - Run the backend — see Platform/DevBook/README.md (
dotnet run --project Platform/DevBook/DevBook.API/DevBook.API.csproj).