Fabric is Daniel Miessler’s open-source project for augmenting humans with AI. It’s basically a collection of “patterns” - pre-built prompts that help you accomplish tasks without reinventing the wheel every time.
Instead of crafting perfect prompts, you use these proven patterns for common tasks like summarizing, extracting info, or brainstorming. It works with various AI providers (including openrouter-ai) via CLI, API, or web. Great for using AI effectively without becoming a prompt expert.
Installation
brew install fabric-ai
brew install yt-dlp
Configuration
fabric-ai --setup
I configured my YouTube API key, OpenRouter API key, and chose my preferred model.
Try Out
Website
Copy website contents (for example, https://dri.es/if-a-note-can-be-public-it-should-be)
pbpaste | fabric-ai -sp summarize
Results in:
### ONE SENTENCE SUMMARY:
Publishing shareable notes as evolving public documents builds personal knowledge gardens, despite friction, insecurity, and imperfection, ultimately benefiting others everywhere.
### MAIN POINTS:
1. Author adopted principle: if a note lacks private info, it belongs on his public website.
2. He was inspired by digital gardens, personal memex concepts, and concise Today I Learned posts.
3. Digital gardens reframed his site as a continually updated notebook rather than polished, static blog posts.
4. TIL-style entries modeled small, practical notes that capture specific learnings without aiming for comprehensive coverage.
5. Influenced by Cory Doctorow’s memex, he values recording and connecting knowledge over time, even privately.
6. Realizing many Obsidian Zettelkasten notes contained no sensitive data, he began publishing them as public resources.
7. Website notes serve as living documents, updated as understanding deepens, labeled as evolving, not finished essays.
8. However, friction moving notes from Obsidian into Drupal introduces inertia, causing numerous notes to remain unpublished.
9. Emotional hesitation and self-doubt about incomplete understanding also prevent some learning notes from being shared publicly.
10. Despite obstacles, decades of open learning convinced him sharing imperfect notes publicly creates opportunities and connections.
### TAKEAWAYS:
1. Publishing non-private notes by default greatly expands personal knowledge sharing and can unexpectedly assist many unseen readers.
2. Treating websites as evolving notebooks encourages continuous revision, iteration, and growth of ideas instead of perfectionism.
3. Leveraging tools like Obsidian and Zettelkasten turns scattered insights into a connected, searchable, and sharable knowledge network.
4. Accepting imperfect, in-progress understanding lowers barriers to sharing and accelerates both personal learning and community feedback.
5. Building a long-term habit of learning in public often yields career opportunities, collaborations, and deeper engagement with peers.
YouTube
fabric-ai -y "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQVcbY52_gY" -sp extract_wisdom
Results in:
## SUMMARY
David Perell interviews a British philosopher-writer about beauty, faith, deep reading, creative courage, declining Western culture, and reclaiming attention through contemplative, historically grounded living practices.
## IDEAS
- Insight often arrives when you stop forcing solutions and create mental space for revelation to emerge.
- Rilke perceives ecstatic beauty in ordinary objects, revealing universality through intense attention to particularities and details.
- Modern sensory overload dulls our ability to appreciate vanilla, mirroring diminished receptivity to nuanced, contour-rich experiences.
- Minimalist performances mesmerize when artists embody music authentically, contrasting with spectacles compensating for shrinking attention spans.
- Memorizing texts, like biblical chapters or Greek poetry, reveals structural subtleties inaccessible through quick, one-time reading.
- Rereading formative books over decades unlocks meanings, as life experience illuminates previously inaccessible layers of significance.
- Embedding philosophical ideals in fictional characters demonstrates virtues and vices more powerfully than abstract argumentative treatises.
- Philosophy excels at framing questions between science and theology, yet academia overemphasizes historical commentary over problem-solving.
- Overprotective education, cultural fear, and time horizons combine to discourage risk-taking and creativity in younger generations.
- Past artisans pursued legacy and transcendence over lifetimes, whereas hedonistic doom narratives incentivize immediate gratification instead.
- Faith-based desire to please God can uniquely motivate creating beauty beyond material incentives or rational justification.
- Masaccio’s decades crafting Florence’s baptistery doors exemplify devotion to enduring beauty, contrasting today’s disposable, machine-made environments.
- Zadie Smith avoids the internet to protect her imagination from critics’ voices and hyperactive feedback loops.
- Choosing near-total disengagement from zeitgeist media creates fear initially but ultimately deepens originality and independent thought.
- Slow, repeated reading of a text, like the Bible, transforms character more than consuming books quickly.
- Investigating primary sources, like New Testament codices, reveals historical inconsistencies overlooked by narratives and Wikipedia summaries.
- Goal-free, curiosity-driven research journeys often uncover unexpected, important questions that narrowly defined academic projects would miss.
- Accepting cyclical creative energy, instead of forcing constant output, fosters healthier relationships with work and inspiration.
- Experiences of inspiration as revelation or muse suggest altered mind states beyond deliberate, rational thinking alone.
- Extended solitude and long walks in nature catalyze associative thinking, allowing disparate ideas to meaningfully connect.
- Ubiquitous overstimulation may drive use of depressant drugs as people unconsciously numb overwhelming sensory environments today.
- Dividing STEM from humanities impoverishes both, disconnecting rigorous reasoning from spiritual, historical and aesthetic wisdom traditions.
- Questioning materialist models of consciousness is treated as heresy, despite science admitting unknowns like dark matter.
- Overreliance on empirical studies to confirm obvious truths reflects distrust of inherited wisdom and common sense.
- Great essays function like pointillist paintings, accumulating precise details to evoke moods rather than logical arguments.
- Stimulated environments like restaurants or malls can feel assaultive to sensitive people cultivated on beauty instead.
- Suspicion of hierarchy and merit leads to egalitarian aesthetics, eroding aspiration toward objective standards of beauty.
- Engaging deeply with the Bible, Homer, or Federalist Papers humbles modern egos and contextualizes today’s crises.
- Maximalist design and prose, carefully balanced with coherence, can express personality than today’s sterile, minimalist defaults.
- Imagining oneself as immortal encourages experimenting with diverse careers, and identities instead of narrowly scripted lives.
## INSIGHTS
- Enduring beauty arises when creators orient toward transcendence and legacy, not ROI, applause, or contemporary fashion.
- In an economy of distraction, protecting solitude becomes a technology for originality, sanity, and spiritual depth.
- Deep rereading of foundational texts rewires identity, whereas breadth-focused consumption leaves personality largely untouched and untransformed.
- Creative breakthroughs require bravery to step outside Overton windows, risking ostracism to explore neglected intellectual territories.
- Hyper-specialization blinds disciplines; progress demands synthesizers who fluently translate between science, history, theology, and lived experience.
- Audiences hunger for authenticity more than professionalism; unfiltered conviction can resonate more than cautious consensus positions.
- Digital tools’ convenience erodes formality, yet formality can be a spiritual discipline intensifying attention and care.
- Prevailing recreational drugs mirror civilizational mood; shifts from stimulants to anesthetics signal withdrawal from life’s intensity.
- Recognizing science’s vast unknowns invites epistemic humility, reopening space for metaphysics, faith, and alternative consciousness models.
- Destroying aesthetic hierarchy flattens aspiration; people secretly crave excellence yet fear acknowledging objective gradations of beauty.
- Cities’ decaying streets surrounding magnificent interiors symbolize spiritual decline: inherited greatness coexists with neglect and amnesia.
- Thinking like an immortal reframes life from optimization problem into open-ended laboratory for reinvention and exploration.
## QUOTES
- "you can't necessarily always think yourself into the answers you have to create space for the answers to come to you" — Guest
- "the West is dying and we are killing her the American dream has been replaced by mass packaged mediocrity porn encouraging us to Revel like happy pigs in our own meekness" — Guest
- "all the best of the books are like you're messed up and here's like non-fiction about how you can be less messed up" — Guest
- "I'm like cool I'll start watching Netflix when I've read the whole of human history" — Guest
- "he describes as like I'm looking at a door a chair a flower I see the Ecstasy of everything" — Guest
- "people don't even have the receptors to appreciate how contoured something can be in these very subtle ways" — David
- "there's just not that many people who have the courage to reach Beyond consensus and go explore new ideas" — David
- "when you memorize chapters it takes a few months but you really understand how things are structured you understand the subtleties that almost get revealed to you through repetition" — Jimmy (quoted by David)
- "as you get older if there's books that moved you when you were younger it's like worth going back and rereading them" — Guest
- "philosophy is a no man's land between Theology and science" — Guest (quoting Bertrand Russell)
- "people care a lot about freedom and agency and adults without realizing that people lose it as a child" — Guest
- "why did people build such beautiful churches 500 years ago they had shorter life expectancies than we did" — Guest
- "it's almost even hard to quantify the outer limits of beauty something that is beautiful you just know it's beautiful" — David
- "he spent 40 years making a door and now everyone CS up to go see it cuz it's so beautiful did he not win" — Guest
- "the best thing I've ever done in my life was like in the last two years just completely disengaged with as Z guys" — Guest
- "I'm so surprised by how many of my you know smart intellectual friends come home and they just zone out it's like TV shows just can't even anything worse" — Guest
- "I've ended up all the way on the other side of the barbell like the only book that I read is the Bible" — David
- "history is kind of like the foundation of propaganda like how people Define the past is how people place themselves in the present" — Guest
- "it's just so fun to go in and not have a goal" — Guest
- "there's a humility there right which is like I have to sit and percolate" — Guest
- "people don't realize that the introverted is not like people don't think of me as interv but like I get really overly stimulated from going to different things" — Guest
- "the core thing that you're saying there is just letting yourself feel that rather than rejecting it" — David
- "I'd rather oscillate than PLO like I'd rather feel how in the hardness of life you can also then appreciate later the beauty" — Guest
- "everyone needs take a massive simility pill" — Guest
- "it's crazy that some people just have lived in the same place their entire lives" — Guest
- "go find things that resonate with you right and like don't be embarrassed by it" — Guest
- "I just think people aren't studying the like classical text enough" — Guest
- "there's things for me to appreciate about the present and in that humility I find my voice" — Guest
- "I felt like if we had walked an hour and a half later we would have been murdered" — David
- "if that's not a motif for what's happening right now with the decline of the creative spirit I don't know what is" — David
## HABITS
- Memorizes chapters of important texts, like the Bible, over months to internalize structure and subtle connections.
- Rereads formative novels, such as Atlas Shrugged, every couple years to uncover age-dependent layers of meaning.
- Returns to previously impactful books regularly, trusting they still hold undiscovered lessons for older, wiser selves.
- Refuses to watch Netflix or TV, prioritizing reading human history and texts instead of passive entertainment.
- Curates mental inputs aggressively, showing surprise at friends’ willingness to passively consume whatever media surrounds them.
- Reads Bible passages daily alongside study Bibles, examining etymology, then journaling applications to character and behavior.
- Texts a trusted friend daily with spiritual or behavioral commitments derived from that day’s scriptural reflection.
- Walks eight miles in the morning, using movement and nature to stimulate thought and associations.
- Spends hours daily thinking, lying in bed or sitting, without devices, letting ideas percolate and converge.
- Periodically disengages from Twitter and news, accepting temporary ignorance to preserve focus and creative independence.
- Works in obsessive research phases, immersing in one topic for months rather than steady daily output.
- Escapes to a house, covering walls with notes, writing for stretches while riding manic creative energy.
- Allows creative motivation to cycle naturally, avoiding self-judgment during dry periods instead of forcing uninspired work.
- Regularly travels to historically significant cities like Istanbul, Rome, and Vienna to absorb architecture and history.
- Enrolls in hands-on courses like oil painting, believing new mediums sharpen perception and cross-pollinate with writing.
- Refuses to speed-listen to audiobooks, choosing slower, deeper engagement rather than anxious optimization of information throughput.
- Keeps a low-tech home filled with books and candles, cultivating environment conducive to contemplation and sensitivity.
- Donates to manuscript preservation projects and personally studies primary sources to understand history beyond secondary interpretations.
- Regularly returns to poets like Rilke, using their ecstatic noticing to train attention toward everyday beauty.
- Structures life to protect unbroken blocks of time for reading, research, and reflection over social activities.
## FACTS
- The Bible is described as the read book in the world, foundational to Western civilization’s development.
- Modern cosmology labels roughly ninety-five percent of observable reality as dark matter or energy, fundamentally unexplained.
- Codex Sinaiticus is claimed to be a fourth-century New Testament manuscript, possibly one of Constantine’s Bibles.
- A nineteenth-century scholar claimed monks at Saint Catherine’s Monastery were burning parchment manuscripts for fireplace kindling.
- Traditional Jewish and Christian practice often retires sacred or heretical texts through burial rather than burning.
- Istanbul uniquely spans two continents; residents regularly cross from European to Asian sides via ferry rides.
- Muslim-majority cities like Istanbul broadcast the call to prayer five times daily, audibly structuring residents’ time.
- Cultural trends show increased use of depressant substances like alcohol, cannabis, ketamine, and SSRIs among people.
- In the 1990s and 2000s, rave and finance cultures frequently used stimulants like cocaine and MDMA.
- Sixteenth-century Europeans typically had shorter life expectancies than modern Westerners, yet still built cathedrals over decades.
- Some traditional British schools historically required students to study Latin and Greek, reading classical texts extensively.
- The Federalist Papers appeared as essays debating ratification of the United States Constitution in the 1780s.
- The Claremont Institute hosts fellowships where participants study the Constitution, Federalist Papers, and American political philosophy.
- J.P. Morgan’s New York library houses printed Bibles and medieval manuscripts, with decorated wood and ceilings.
- Her British school required students from ages four to eighteen to write exclusively with fountain pens.
- Underworld is an electronic music group featured on the Hackers soundtrack, active since the 1990s era.
- The Barbie movie became a cultural event, reflecting zeitgeist themes that viewers found confusing or alienating.
- Contemporary readers increasingly favor short-form content and self-help over classics, with overall deep book reading declining.
- Downtown Los Angeles now features empty, decaying streets at night despite historically grand interior building lobbies.
- American celebrity and entertainment culture is generally more dominant and trashy than in many European countries.
## REFERENCES
- Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry, especially the *Duino Elegies*
- Vanilla, used as a metaphor for subtlety in flavor and aesthetics
- Underworld, the electronic music group, and the *Hackers* movie soundtrack
- The Prodigy (electronic music group)
- Radiohead (rock band)
- Katy Perry’s highly theatrical pop concerts
- Taylor Swift’s large-scale stadium performances
- Ancient Greek poetry and memorized epics
- The Bible, including Old Testament and New Testament
- *Atlas Shrugged* by Ayn Rand
- Robert Pirsig’s philosophical novels (e.g., *Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance*)
- René Descartes and Cartesian dualism
- Philosophy degree at University College London
- Oxford University programs combining philosophy with physics
- The Vatican and Florence’s cathedral baptistery doors (doors of the Duomo)
- Mike Ma’s novel *Harassment Architecture*
- The Urbit conference in Miami
- Short film *Every Angel Is Terrifying*
- David Perell’s film *You Were Made For More Than This*
- David Perell’s essay “Against 3x Speed”
- Max Weber’s work on the Protestant work ethic (misheard as “Mox Bayird”)
- ESV Study Bible
- Biblical Theology Study Bible
- Codex Sinaiticus (ancient New Testament manuscript)
- The Dead Sea Scrolls
- The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (Daniel Wallace)
- William of Ockham’s writings and the principle known as Ockham’s Razor
- Avicenna’s medieval medical texts and early articulation of germ theory
- William Morris’s illuminated edition of *The Canterbury Tales*
- Zadie Smith’s novels and her decision to stay off the internet
## ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY
Protect your attention, read books deeply, and create beauty from solitude instead of consuming distractions.
## RECOMMENDATIONS
- Memorize substantial chapters of meaningful texts; the slow repetition will reveal hidden structure and unexpected connections.
- Periodically reread formative books from earlier life stages to unlock meanings only accessible with added experience.
- Swap passive streaming time for reading enduring works like the Odyssey, Bible, or Federalist Papers repeatedly.
- Drastically limit exposure to zeitgeist media and news so your thinking develops independently from consensus narratives.
- Schedule long, device-free walks to think, letting environmental details spark associations between seemingly unrelated ideas freely.
- Choose one sacred or philosophical text and study it daily with commentaries, notes, and journaling exercises.
- Approach writing like pointillist painting, layering precise details to evoke moods instead of only presenting arguments.
- Channel intense emotions like anger or grief onto the page instead of numbing them with distractions.
- Handwrite drafts with fountain pens or typewriters occasionally to reintroduce formality, friction, and unerasable creative mistakes.
- When studying history or religion, seek manuscripts and primary documents rather than relying solely on summaries.
- Pair technical learning with philosophy, theology, or literature to develop reasoning about technology’s impact on humanity.
- Surround yourself with beauty—books, art, architecture—so your taste and sensitivity are continually educated by your environment.
- Practice courageously questioning dominant paradigms, like materialist consciousness models, while maintaining intellectual humility about unknowns everywhere.
- Plan your life as if you could live careers and identities, reducing pressure to pick now.
- Teach children philosophy early, through playful discussions and texts, so curiosity survives rigid schooling structures intact.
- When societal decline angers you, articulate that fury into essays or films instead of hopeless complaining.
- Seek live performances where minimal staging highlights artists’ embodied presence, retraining attention to subtler energies again.
- Pursue programs like constitutional or classical studies fellowships to understand political foundations beyond contemporary partisan narratives.
- Practice Rilkean noticing by selecting everyday objects and observing them until invisible beauty becomes emotionally vivid.
- Create regular tech-free rituals—reading, praying, journaling—that anchor your day beyond algorithmically curated content streams and addiction.