obsidian

Obsidian Claude Code Plugin

An MCP server that gives AI assistants direct filesystem access to an Obsidian vault. Built in Rust using rmcp.

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Claude Code Plugin

The easiest way to use obsidian-mcp is via the bundled Claude Code plugin, which adds ready-to-use skills and agents on top of the MCP server.

What's included

Component	What it does
obsidian-writer skill	Creates or updates structured Obsidian notes — index note with Mermaid diagram, deep-dive notes, wikilinks, and a canvas map
deep-researcher skill	Researches a topic from the web and produces a structured Research Brief (key concepts, subtopics, sources)
obsidian-canvas skill	Builds or updates an Obsidian canvas that visually maps notes as linked nodes
obsidian-writer agent	Autonomous agent: given a topic, writes and maintains vault notes following the obsidian-writer skill
research-and-save agent	Autonomous agent: researches a topic from the web, then writes structured notes + canvas to the vault

Plugin setup

Step 1 — Install the MCP server (see Installation below).

Step 2 — Install the plugin into Claude Code:

claude plugin add https://github.com/Mohd-Bilal/obsidian-mcp --subdir plugin

Or, if you have the repo cloned locally:

claude plugin add /path/to/obsidian-mcp/plugin

Step 3 — Verify:

claude plugin list

You should see obsidian (v1.3.0) listed.

Using the skills

Once installed, the skills are available in any Claude Code session:

# Write notes about a topic you already know
"create obsidian notes about the CAP theorem"

# Research a topic from the web and save to vault
"research how transformers work and save to obsidian"

# Update existing notes with new information
"add a section on RAFT consensus to my distributed systems notes"

The research-and-save agent triggers automatically on phrases like:

• "research X and save"
• "look up X and add to obsidian"
• "find out about X and write notes"

Plugin structure

plugin/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   └── plugin.json          # Plugin manifest
├── skills/
│   ├── obsidian-writer/     # Note writing conventions
│   ├── obsidian-canvas/     # Canvas layout conventions
│   └── deep-researcher/     # Web research → structured brief
└── agents/
    ├── obsidian-writer.md   # Vault writing agent
    └── research-and-save.md # Research + write agent

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MCP Server

Features

Vault

• vault_list — List all Obsidian vaults registered on this machine (name, path, open status, last used)
• vault_switch — Switch the active vault for the current session

Notes

• note_create — Create a new note (optionally from a template)
• note_read — Read raw markdown content of a note
• note_update — Overwrite a note's content
• note_delete — Delete a note

Frontmatter

• frontmatter_read — Read YAML frontmatter as a JSON object
• frontmatter_write — Merge or replace frontmatter fields

Links

• link_insert_wikilink — Insert a [[wikilink]] (with optional alias) into a note
• link_get_backlinks — Find all notes that link to a given note
• link_get_forward_links — List all wikilinks inside a note

Search

• search_notes — Full-text search across all notes, returns path, line number, and snippet

Images

• image_embed — Embed an existing vault attachment into a note
• image_import — Copy an external image into the vault and embed it

Canvas

• canvas_read — Read a .canvas file (nodes + edges)
• canvas_create — Create a new canvas file
• canvas_update — Overwrite a canvas's nodes and edges
• canvas_delete — Delete a canvas file

Folders

• folder_create — Create a folder
• folder_rename — Rename or move a folder
• folder_delete — Delete a folder (force=true required if non-empty)

Git (background)

• Automatically initialises a git repo in your vault on startup (if one doesn't exist)
• Optional periodic auto-commit via GIT_AUTOCOMMIT_INTERVAL

Installation

Requires Rust (stable toolchain).

git clone https://github.com/Mohd-Bilal/obsidian-mcp.git
cd obsidian-mcp/rust
cargo build --release

The compiled binary is at rust/target/release/obsidian-mcp.

Configuration

The server discovers your vault automatically from ~/.config/obsidian/obsidian.json on Linux or ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/obsidian.json on macOS (whichever vault was most recently open). You can override this with an environment variable.