Getting the Celestial Vault

The Celestial Vault is sold as a single .zip you download, unzip, and open in Obsidian. There's no installer, no subscription, no account. It's a folder.

This page is what to do once you've got the file. If you haven't yet, the landing page is where it lives.

What You Get When You Buy

After your purchase completes, you receive an email with:

• A download link for the .zip (the vault itself)
• A license key — the same key unlocks both the vault and Time Garden Eternal's AI features (see License Unification & Your 3 Devices)

Save the license key somewhere safe. You can also retrieve it later from your Lemon Squeezy orders page.

Step 1 — Download Obsidian (If You Haven't Already)

The Celestial Vault runs inside Obsidian, the free notebook app. Download it from obsidian.md and run the installer.

(More on what Obsidian is: What is Obsidian?.)

Step 2 — Download The Celestial Vault

Click the download link in your purchase email. You'll get a single file:

Celestial Vault.zip

It's not small — there's a looping background video, widget assets, and the bundled plugin stack inside. Expect ~100–200 MB. Let it finish.

Step 3 — Unzip Carefully

This is the only step where you can trip up. The next page is dedicated entirely to it: Unzipping & Opening.

The short version: double-click the zip to extract it, then look for the inner folder named Celestial Vault (not the wrapper). That's the one you'll open in Obsidian.

Step 4 — Open The Vault In Obsidian

In Obsidian, choose "Open folder as vault" and point it at the inner Celestial Vault folder.

A welcome overlay appears. Walk through it. (Full breakdown: The Welcome Experience.)

Step 5 — Enter Your License Key

When the welcome flow asks for your license, paste the key from your purchase email. The vault validates with the license server and unlocks.

If you've already bought Time Garden Eternal previously and used the same email, the welcome flow detects it and skips the license step. Pretty quietly elegant.

Step 6 — Set Your Nickname

The welcome flow asks for a nickname. This isn't decorative — it's used in the empty-tab greeting (*Hello. <YourName>.*) and a few other places throughout the vault. You can change it later in settings.

Step 7 — (Optional) Import Your Old Vault

If you're coming from another Obsidian vault and want to bring your existing notes along, the welcome flow includes a vault import step.

(Full guide: Importing Your Old Vault.)

You can skip this and import later from settings if you'd rather start fresh.

Step 8 — Read The Three Tutorial Cards

The end of the welcome flow shows three short tutorial cards — one for the Celestial UX layer, one for the Kepano-inspired self-organizing notes, and one for Time Garden. These link out to YouTube. Watch them when you have time. They're 5–15 minutes each.

Step 9 — Hit "Begin"

Welcome closes. Empty tab appears. You see your personalized greeting in gradient text, a soft starfield, a video loop in the background.

A small notice fires in the top-right: "Start your journal: press ⌥⇧D for today's daily note." The daily-note shortcut in the bottom-left status bar shimmers gold for a few seconds.

That's the first-launch nudge. After it fades, you're alone with the vault.

Welcome to your Celestial Vault. 💛

What To Do First

Three suggestions:

1. Press the daily-note shortcut the nudge pointed to. Write a sentence. Set a rating. (Full anatomy: Daily Notes — note that Celestial's daily is similar but uses different defaults than standalone Time Garden.)
2. Open the Books.md (or Movies.md, People.md, etc.) page and read what a category looks like. Don't try to fill it yet.
3. Read The Self-Organizing Vault to understand the philosophical half of what you just bought.

Up Next

• Unzipping & Opening — the careful unzip walkthrough
• The Welcome Experience — what every step of welcome does
• Importing Your Old Vault — bringing your existing notes in