agentic-os-obsidian

Agentic OS — Obsidian vault

Installs a configurable command-center dashboard inside an existing Obsidian vault. Bundles and side-loads 5 plugins (Dataview, CustomJS, Shell-commands, Terminal, Homepage). Home + per-profile + Vault Overview pages, KPI cards, sparklines, heatmap, task rollup, recent-files lists, and a button bar wired to user-defined Claude prompts via the Shell-commands plugin. All 5 required plugins are bundled and auto-enabled — the user only has to restart Obsidian. Markdown-based, no servers.

Looking for a real web app with live API integrations and a Railway URL instead? That's the standalone route — use the agentic-os-standalone skill.

What gets installed

{vault}/
├── Dashboard/
│   ├── Home.md                       # Team-wide dashboard
│   ├── Vault-Overview.md             # Top-level vault health view
│   ├── {Profile}.md                  # One per configured profile
│   ├── Setup.md                      # In-vault setup reference
│   ├── CLAUDE.md                     # AI routing rules for this folder
│   ├── components/dashboard.js       # The renderer (CONFIG substituted)
│   └── lib/frappe-charts.min.js
└── .obsidian/
    ├── snippets/command-center.css   # Brand-styled CSS (enabled)
    ├── plugins/dataview/             # Side-loaded, enabled
    ├── plugins/customjs/             # Side-loaded, enabled
    ├── plugins/obsidian-shellcommands/  # Side-loaded, enabled, aliases pre-registered
    ├── plugins/terminal/             # Side-loaded, enabled, "Claude" profile configured
    ├── plugins/homepage/             # Side-loaded, enabled, points to Dashboard/Home
    ├── community-plugins.json        # Union'd with the 5 plugin IDs
    └── appearance.json               # CSS snippet enabled

Pre-flight checks

test -d .obsidian && echo "vault confirmed" || (echo "NOT A VAULT — cd into your Obsidian vault first" && exit 1)
test -d Dashboard && echo "DASHBOARD EXISTS — ask user before overwriting"

If Dashboard/ exists, ask: cancel / install into Dashboard-new/ / overwrite (require explicit "yes overwrite").

Interview (always run before installing)

Use AskUserQuestion for each. Capture answers into variables for substitution into CONFIG.

Q1. Organization name

"What's your organization or personal brand name? (Used in folder paths and dashboard header. Short — one word ideal.)" Default if skipped: MyOrg. Variable: ORG_NAME.

Q2. Brand label + subtitle

"What should the dashboard show as its title?" Two parts:

• Brand label (header text, e.g. "Acme"). Defaults to ORG_NAME. Variable: BRAND_LABEL.
• Brand subtitle (small text after the label, e.g. "Agentic OS", "Command Center"). Default Command Center. Variable: BRAND_SUB.

Q3. Profile list

"Who's on the team? List each profile name on a separate line. Use lowercase or capitalized — must match the folder names you'll use in step 4. For a solo vault, just one name." Parse into array. Variable: PROFILES (JSON array). The first is DEFAULT_PROFILE.

Q4. Profile folder pattern

"Where do you keep per-profile data?" Show 4 options via AskUserQuestion:

• Team/{ORG}/Profiles/{name} (recommended for orgs — matches Team/Acme/Profiles/Alex)
• Team/{name} (flat team layout)
• People/{name} (alternative naming)
• Custom — ask user to type the exact pattern. Must contain {name}. {ORG} is optional.

Variable: PROFILE_FOLDER_PATTERN. Verify each PROFILES[i] folder exists (warn if missing — installer will still write the dashboard; profile folders just won't have data yet).

Q5. Daily / Tasks / Snapshots subpaths

Three quick AskUserQuestion calls (each with sensible defaults):

• Daily subpath within each profile folder. Default Daily. Empty disables. Variable: DAILY_SUBPATH.
• Tasks subpath (Task Board plugin uses task-list). Default task-list. Empty disables the task widget. Variable: TASKS_SUBPATH.
• Snapshots subpath for JSON files the dashboard reads. Default snapshots. Variable: SNAPSHOTS_SUBPATH.

Also: Root daily path for team-wide rollups. Default Daily. Variable: ROOT_DAILY_PATH.

Q6. Pages to ship

Which dashboard pages? MultiSelect:

• Home (team rollup) — always recommended
• Per-profile pages (one per Q3 profile)
• Vault Overview (top-level folder health)
• Custom — user names extra pages

Variable: PAGES (array). Installer creates one .md per page.

Q7. Overview folders (only if Vault Overview is in PAGES)

"Name 3-5 top-level folders to show on the Vault Overview page. For each: folder path, one-line description, optional CLAUDE.md path (or empty)." Variable: OVERVIEW_FOLDERS (array of [path, description, claude_path]). Defaults if skipped: detect Projects/, Resources/, Intelligence/, Departments/, Teams/, Daily/ if present.

Q8. Buttons (with Claude prompts)

"What action buttons should the dashboard expose? For each button: label (short), icon (emoji or empty), scope (team / profile / both), and a Claude prompt (the text passed to claude -p '...'). Use {profile} in the prompt to interpolate the current profile name. Add as many as you want; defaults are zero."

Suggest these as starter buttons (user can accept/reject each):

• Morning brief (☀️, both, prompt: "Read today's daily for {profile} if it exists. Write a 5-line morning brief covering open loops, top priorities, and energy level. Append under a '## Morning brief' heading.")
• New daily (📝, both, prompt: "Create today's daily note at <DAILY_PATH>/$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md with standard frontmatter and section headings. Don't overwrite if it exists.")
• Launch Claude (💬, both, cmd: terminal:open-terminal.claude.root) — wired via Terminal plugin "Claude" profile, NOT a shell-command
• Reload (🔄, both, cmd: app:reload)
• Settings (⚙️, both, cmd: app:open-settings)

For every button with a prompt, the installer generates a shell-commands alias shell-command-<kebab-label> and a cmd: obsidian-shellcommands:shell-command-<alias>.

Variable: BUTTONS (object with team and profile arrays).

Q9. Brand colors

Two hex colors. Defaults: primary #020309, canvas #FAF3E3. Substitute into CONFIG.COLORS and the CSS snippet variables at the top of command-center.css.

Q10. Brand mark (optional)

"Path to a PNG/SVG logo to show in the dashboard header? Leave blank for no logo." If provided, copy to Dashboard/lib/brand-mark.png and set BRAND_MARK_PATH to that. Default empty.

Critical constraints — read before editing the renderer template

These two pitfalls broke real installs. Treat them as load-bearing.

1. CustomJS file shape: ONE class expression, period.

CustomJS evaluates each .js file as eval(\(${file_contents})`)` — it wraps the entire file in parentheses to coerce it into a single expression and pull the class out. This means:

• ✅ Allowed: a single class dashboard { ... } declaration. Comments before and after are fine.
• ❌ NOT allowed: a top-level const CONFIG = {...} or any other statement before/after the class. (const CONFIG = ...) is a syntax error because const is a statement, not an expression. CustomJS surfaces this as SyntaxError: ParseError: Unexpected token.

In references/obsidian/dashboard-template.js, CONFIG lives as a static CONFIG = { ... } field at the top of the class body. All code references it as this.constructor.CONFIG.X (not bare CONFIG.X). Preserve that pattern when editing — if you re-introduce a top-level const, the dashboard renders as a blank page with no console error from the dataviewjs block.

Smoke test before shipping any renderer change:

node -e "$(cat dashboard-template.js | sed 's/__[A-Z_]*__/null/g' | python3 -c 'import sys; print(f\"({sys.stdin.read()})\");')"

If that fails with a SyntaxError, the file violates the constraint. Fix before substitution.

2. Plugin data.json keys are NOT what you'd guess.

Always cross-reference the keys against a known-working vault — do not invent them from the plugin's UI labels. Confirmed-correct keys:

Plugin	Key	Wrong-but-tempting alternative
customjs	jsFolder (and jsFiles: "")	❌ folder (silently ignored — plugin scans nothing)
dataview	enableDataviewJs, enableInlineDataviewJs, enableInlineDataview	(these are correct)
homepage	homepages (plural, object keyed by display name) → .value	❌ homepage (singular)
terminal	profiles.claude.executable (absolute path)	❌ relying on claude in PATH (Obsidian doesn't inherit login shell PATH)
obsidian-shellcommands	shell_commands[shell-command-<alias>].shell_command	❌ flat commands[] array

When in doubt, look at a known-working install's data.json before writing the install flow.

Install execution

After the interview, do these in order. Resolve $SKILL_DIR from the skill's own path. All references live under $SKILL_DIR/references/obsidian/.

Step 1. Create folder structure

mkdir -p Dashboard/components Dashboard/lib Dashboard/snapshots
mkdir -p .obsidian/snippets .obsidian/plugins

Step 2. Substitute CONFIG and write dashboard.js

Read $SKILL_DIR/references/obsidian/dashboard-template.js. Substitute each placeholder with the captured value:

Placeholder	Value
__ORG_NAME__	ORG_NAME
__BRAND_LABEL__	BRAND_LABEL
__BRAND_SUB__	BRAND_SUB
__BRAND_MARK_PATH__	BRAND_MARK_PATH (or "")
__PROFILES_JSON__	JSON.stringify(PROFILES)
__DEFAULT_PROFILE__	DEFAULT_PROFILE
__PROFILE_FOLDER_PATTERN__	PROFILE_FOLDER_PATTERN
__DAILY_SUBPATH__	DAILY_SUBPATH
__TASKS_SUBPATH__	TASKS_SUBPATH
__SNAPSHOTS_SUBPATH__	SNAPSHOTS_SUBPATH
__ROOT_DAILY_PATH__	ROOT_DAILY_PATH
__OVERVIEW_FOLDERS_JSON__	JSON.stringify(OVERVIEW_FOLDERS)
__BUTTONS_JSON__	JSON.stringify(BUTTONS)
__CLAUDE_PROMPTS_JSON__	"{}" (reserved for later use)
__SKILLS_FOLDER__	optional skills folder path (e.g. Plugins/skills); empty hides the Vault Overview Skills section
__SKILL_GROUPS_JSON__	"{}" (or JSON.stringify({"Group": ["skill-a", "skill-b"]}))
__PROJECT_CATEGORIES_JSON__	"[]" (or JSON.stringify(["Agency","Content"]) if user has Projects/<Cat>/ subfolders)
__CONNECTORS_JSON__	"[]" (or JSON.stringify([["Slack","Team comms"], ...]))
__CHEATSHEET_JSON__	"[]" (or JSON.stringify([["Meeting note","Intelligence/meetings/YYYY-MM-DD-{Title}.md"], ...]))

Ask the user about these five optional Vault Overview fields only if they chose to ship the Vault Overview page. All accept empty defaults.

Write the result to Dashboard/components/dashboard.js. Verify with both checks before declaring success:

# 1. Plain JS parse
node --check Dashboard/components/dashboard.js || { echo "FATAL: dashboard.js has a syntax error"; exit 1; }

# 2. CustomJS-wrapped parse — catches the 'top-level const' pitfall (see Critical Constraints)
node -e "try { new Function('return (' + require('fs').readFileSync('Dashboard/components/dashboard.js','utf8') + ')'); console.log('CustomJS wrap OK'); } catch (e) { console.error('FATAL — CustomJS will reject this file:', e.message); process.exit(1); }"

Both must pass. If check #2 fails but #1 passes, you've reintroduced a top-level statement before the class.

Step 3. Copy static assets

cp "$SKILL_DIR/references/obsidian/frappe-charts.min.js" Dashboard/lib/

If a brand mark was provided in Q10, copy it into Dashboard/lib/.

Step 4. Generate dashboard MD pages

For each page in PAGES, read the corresponding template and substitute placeholders:

• references/obsidian/home-template.md → Dashboard/Home.md
• references/obsidian/vault-overview-template.md → Dashboard/Vault-Overview.md
• For each profile in PROFILES: references/obsidian/profile-template.md → Dashboard/{Profile}.md, substitute {{PROFILE_NAME}}

Step 5. Setup + CLAUDE docs

• references/obsidian/setup-template.md → Dashboard/Setup.md, substitute {{BRAND_LABEL}}, {{PAGES_LINKS}}
• references/obsidian/claude-md-template.md → Dashboard/CLAUDE.md, substitute {{ORG_NAME}}, {{PROFILE_FOLDER_PATTERN}}

Step 6. Side-load plugins

For each of dataview, customjs, obsidian-shellcommands, terminal, homepage:

if [ ! -d ".obsidian/plugins/$ID" ]; then
  mkdir -p ".obsidian/plugins/$ID"
  cp "$SKILL_DIR/references/obsidian/plugins/$ID/"* ".obsidian/plugins/$ID/"
fi

The if guard preserves any newer version the user already has.

Step 7. Plugin data.json files

dataview:

{"enableDataviewJs": true, "enableInlineDataviewJs": true, "enableInlineDataview": true}

customjs: The key is jsFolder (NOT folder).

{"jsFiles": "", "jsFolder": "Dashboard/components", "startupScriptNames": [], "registeredInvocableScriptNames": []}

obsidian-shellcommands: For each button in BUTTONS.team and BUTTONS.profile that has a prompt, generate one shell-commands entry:

{
  "shell_commands": {
    "shell-command-<alias>": {
      "shell_command": "cd \"{{vault_dir}}\" && claude -p \"<escaped-prompt>\" --dangerously-skip-permissions",
      "alias": "<alias>",
      "platform_specific_commands": {"default": "use this"},
      "shells": {},
      "events": {},
      "debounce": null,
      "execution_notification_mode": "disabled",
      "output_channels": {"stdout": "notification", "stderr": "notification-bigger"},
      "output_handlers": {},
      "output_wrappers": {"stdout": null, "stderr": null},
      "command_palette_availability": "enabled"
    }
  },
  "preferences": {"debug": false},
  "settings_version": "0.23.0"
}

Replace <alias> with kebab-cased label. Escape double quotes in the prompt.

terminal: Cross-platform "claude" integrated profile.

Resolving the claude binary path — #1 source of Launch Claude button failures. Obsidian's Terminal plugin spawns processes without the user's login shell, so PATH is not enough. Need absolute path.

Probe in this order, take the first hit:

CLAUDE_BIN="$(zsh -ic 'command -v claude' 2>/dev/null || bash -ic 'command -v claude' 2>/dev/null || command -v claude)"
if [ -z "$CLAUDE_BIN" ] || [ ! -x "$CLAUDE_BIN" ]; then
  for candidate in \
    "$HOME/.local/bin/claude" \
    "$HOME/.claude/local/claude" \
    "/opt/homebrew/bin/claude" \
    "/usr/local/bin/claude" \
    "$HOME/.npm-global/bin/claude" \
    "$HOME/.volta/bin/claude" \
    "/usr/bin/claude"; do
    [ -x "$candidate" ] && CLAUDE_BIN="$candidate" && break
  done
fi
if [ -n "$CLAUDE_BIN" ] && "$CLAUDE_BIN" --version >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  echo "resolved: $CLAUDE_BIN"
else
  CLAUDE_BIN=""
fi

If empty, fall through to AskUserQuestion asking for the full path or to skip. If skipped, omit the claude profile entirely rather than ship a broken one.

{
  "profiles": {
    "claude": {
      "args": ["--dangerously-skip-permissions"],
      "executable": "<resolved absolute path>",
      "followTheme": true,
      "name": "Claude",
      "platforms": {"darwin": true, "linux": true, "win32": true},
      "restoreHistory": false,
      "rightClickAction": "copyPaste",
      "successExitCodes": ["0", "SIGINT", "SIGTERM"],
      "terminalOptions": {"documentOverride": null},
      "type": "integrated",
      "useWin32Conhost": true
    }
  },
  "addToCommand": true,
  "focusOnNewInstance": true,
  "newInstanceBehavior": "newHorizontalSplit"
}

Print the resolved path to the user in the final summary (Launch Claude wired to: /opt/homebrew/bin/claude). Verify before declaring complete: test -x "$CLAUDE_BIN" and "$CLAUDE_BIN" --version. If a user later sees a Python FileNotFoundError stack from the terminal pane, the executable moved — recovery: re-run which claude, edit .obsidian/plugins/terminal/data.json → profiles.claude.executable, reload Obsidian. Skill should offer to rewire just this step if re-invoked on an existing install.

homepage:

{
  "version": 4,
  "homepages": {
    "Main Homepage": {
      "value": "Dashboard/Home",
      "kind": "File",
      "openOnStartup": true,
      "openMode": "Replace all open notes",
      "manualOpenMode": "Replace all open notes",
      "view": "Reading view",
      "revertView": true,
      "openWhenEmpty": true,
      "refreshDataview": true,
      "autoCreate": false,
      "autoScroll": false,
      "pin": false,
      "commands": [],
      "alwaysApply": false,
      "hideReleaseNotes": false
    }
  },
  "separateMobile": false
}

Step 8. Enable plugins in community-plugins.json

Read .obsidian/community-plugins.json (create [] if missing). Backup to .bak. Union in ["dataview", "customjs", "obsidian-shellcommands", "terminal", "homepage"]. Preserve existing entries. Write back.

Step 9. Enable CSS snippet

Read .obsidian/appearance.json (create {} if missing). Backup to .bak. Read references/obsidian/command-center.css, substitute color placeholders, write to .obsidian/snippets/command-center.css. Set enabledCssSnippets to union with ["command-center"].

Step 10. Print the one remaining manual step

Done. The dashboard, all 5 plugins, the Claude terminal profile, and the homepage are configured.

ONE final step Obsidian only picks up on launch:
  1. Quit Obsidian fully (Cmd/Ctrl + Q — not just close the window).
  2. Reopen the vault.
  3. Obsidian will ask you to "Trust" each plugin. Click Trust for all 5.
  4. Open Dashboard/Home — it should render immediately.

If a button doesn't fire, open Settings → Shell commands and confirm each alias matches the one shown in the button's tooltip. The dashboard's developer console (Cmd/Ctrl + Opt/Alt + I) logs every command attempt.

Don't do

• Do not modify user content outside Dashboard/ and .obsidian/. The dashboard is read-only on Daily/, Team/, Tasks/, etc.
• Do not overwrite existing .obsidian/plugins/<id>/ installs — only side-load when missing. The user may have a newer version.
• Do not use any branded/personal names ("Ben", "BenAI", specific people). All identifiers come from the interview.
• Do not auto-fetch latest plugin versions at install time — bundled versions are pinned. To refresh, re-run the curl commands.

File templates summary

Template	Goes to	Substitutes
obsidian/dashboard-template.js	Dashboard/components/dashboard.js	All __*__ placeholders in CONFIG
obsidian/home-template.md	Dashboard/Home.md	{{BRAND_LABEL}}
obsidian/vault-overview-template.md	Dashboard/Vault-Overview.md	{{BRAND_LABEL}}
obsidian/profile-template.md	Dashboard/{Profile}.md	{{PROFILE_NAME}}
obsidian/setup-template.md	Dashboard/Setup.md	{{BRAND_LABEL}}
obsidian/claude-md-template.md	Dashboard/CLAUDE.md	{{ORG_NAME}}, {{PROFILE_FOLDER_PATTERN}}
obsidian/command-center.css	.obsidian/snippets/command-center.css	--cc-primary, --cc-canvas color vars
obsidian/frappe-charts.min.js	Dashboard/lib/frappe-charts.min.js	none

Bundled plugin folders under references/obsidian/plugins/ are copied verbatim into .obsidian/plugins/<id>/.

Re-invocation behavior

If invoked on an existing install (detect via test -f Dashboard/components/dashboard.js), offer to re-run a specific step rather than a full reinstall. Common single-step fixes: rewiring the claude binary path in .obsidian/plugins/terminal/data.json, regenerating a button's shell-command alias, or re-substituting CONFIG after a profile/page change.