Notation scope = little theories (import closure), not the vault

The vault dwarfs a LaTeX paper, so a single flat preamble/registry is wrong (name collisions, unmanageable). The scoping answer is sTeX's little theories.

The rule

Each note = a little theory; a symbol-macro is declared in its home note (\Variety in ashby).
A note may use a symbol iff its home is in that note's transitive import closure (walk > Prereq: / [[…]] — the 树桩 search).
Scope = the import closure, NOT the vault.

Why the huge vault is a non-issue

Little theories scale precisely because you never hold all symbols at once — only a note's import closure (dozens, not thousands). This is how Lean mathlib / sTeX archives (both enormous) work: V means different things in different closures, by design. Vault size ⟂ scope size — the size never enters resolution.

Collisions only exist within one closure

V@ashby (variety) and V@adaptive-commitment-value (option value) are different theories → never collide — unless a single note imports both, then alias/disambiguate (rare). So scoping dissolves the global-conflation worry: don't keep a global registry, keep per-note closures.

The Obsidian bridge (the one wrinkle)

Obsidian's MathJax has no per-note-import compiler (sTeX does) — only a global preamble or per-note \newcommand. So:

Declare in the home note;
Render: generate one global preamble with globally-unique macro names (e.g. \ashbyV); the renderer ignores scope;
Scope is enforced by the lint: a note may only use macros whose home is in its import closure; a name ambiguous within the closure → "disambiguate". Render global, use scoped-by-lint.

Naming knob

A: global long names \ashbyV — zero ambiguity, no compiler, but verbose in formulas;
B: per-note short alias — each note opens $\newcommand\V{\ashbyV}$ , writes \V; short, scope explicit on the alias line, lint checks the alias target is in-closure. Lean B.

One line

Scope = each note's prerequisite/link transitive closure (a little theory), not the vault; however big the vault, resolution is always against one closure — exactly how Lean mathlib survives. Obsidian renders from a global unique-named preamble; the lint enforces the real per-note scope. See notation-checking-prior-art.