Andrew Yim
236be6c580
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
113 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
113 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
# Database Best Practices
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General guidance for creating and maintaining knowledge capture databases.
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## Core Principles
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### 1. Keep It Simple
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- Start with core properties
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- Add more only when needed
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- Don't over-engineer
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### 2. Use Consistent Naming
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- Title property for main identifier
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- Status for lifecycle tracking
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- Tags for flexible categorization
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- Owner for accountability
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### 3. Include Metadata
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- Created/Updated timestamps
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- Owner or maintainer
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- Last reviewed dates
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- Status indicators
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### 4. Enable Discovery
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- Use tags liberally
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- Create helpful views
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- Link related content
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- Use clear titles
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### 5. Plan for Scale
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- Consider filters early
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- Use relations for connections
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- Think about search
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- Organize with categories
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## Creating a Database
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### Using `Notion:notion-create-database`
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Example for documentation database:
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```javascript
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{
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"parent": {"page_id": "wiki-page-id"},
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"title": [{"text": {"content": "Team Documentation"}}],
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"properties": {
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"Type": {
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"select": {
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"options": [
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{"name": "How-To", "color": "blue"},
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{"name": "Concept", "color": "green"},
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{"name": "Reference", "color": "gray"},
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{"name": "FAQ", "color": "yellow"}
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]
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}
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},
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"Category": {
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"select": {
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"options": [
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{"name": "Engineering", "color": "red"},
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{"name": "Product", "color": "purple"},
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{"name": "Design", "color": "pink"}
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]
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}
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},
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"Tags": {"multi_select": {"options": []}},
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"Owner": {"people": {}},
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"Status": {
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"select": {
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"options": [
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{"name": "Draft", "color": "gray"},
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{"name": "Final", "color": "green"},
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{"name": "Deprecated", "color": "red"}
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]
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}
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}
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}
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}
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```
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### Fetching Database Schema
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Before creating pages, always fetch database to get schema:
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```
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Notion:notion-fetch
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id: "database-url-or-id"
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```
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This returns the exact property names and types to use.
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## Database Selection Guide
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| Need | Use This Database |
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|------|-------------------|
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| General documentation | [Documentation Database](documentation-database.md) |
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| Track decisions | [Decision Log](decision-log-database.md) |
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| Q&A knowledge base | [FAQ Database](faq-database.md) |
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| Team-specific content | [Team Wiki](team-wiki-database.md) |
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| Step-by-step guides | [How-To Guide Database](how-to-guide-database.md) |
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| Incident/project learnings | [Learning Database](learning-database.md) |
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## Tips
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1. **Start with general documentation database** - most flexible
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2. **Add specialized databases** as needs emerge (FAQ, Decisions)
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3. **Use relations** to connect related docs
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4. **Create views** for common use cases
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5. **Review properties** quarterly - remove unused ones
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6. **Document the schema** in database description
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7. **Train team** on property usage and conventions
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