Obsidian MCP Server

Direct file system access to Obsidian vaults through Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Features

• Direct vault access - No plugins or REST API required
• Auto-discovery - Finds vaults from Obsidian config and common locations
• Full-text search - Search across all notes with regex support
• Note operations - Read, write, append, prepend to notes
• Vault management - List vaults, get statistics, browse files
• Windows optimized - Handles Windows paths correctly

Installation

1. Make sure the project is built:

cd C:\repos\obsidian-mcp
npm install
npm run build

2. Add to Claude Desktop configuration:

Edit %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["C:\\repos\\obsidian-mcp\\dist\\index.js"],
      "env": {
        "OBSIDIAN_VAULT": "C:\\Users\\YourName\\Documents\\YourVault"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Available Tools

Vault Management

• list_vaults - Discover available Obsidian vaults
• get_vault_info - Get statistics about a vault

Note Operations

• read_note - Read a note with frontmatter and metadata
• write_note - Create or update a note (overwrite/append/prepend)
• list_notes - List all notes in vault or folder

Search

• search_vault - Full-text search with regex and case-sensitive options

Usage Examples

// List available vaults
list_vaults()

// Read a note
read_note(vault_path: "C:\\Users\\Name\\Vault", note_path: "Daily Notes/2024-01-17")

// Write a note
write_note(
  vault_path: "C:\\Users\\Name\\Vault",
  note_path: "New Note",
  content: "# My New Note\n\nContent here",
  mode: "overwrite"
)

// Search vault
search_vault(
  vault_path: "C:\\Users\\Name\\Vault",
  query: "project",
  options: { case_sensitive: false }
)

Vault Discovery

The server automatically discovers vaults from:

1. Obsidian's configuration (%APPDATA%\obsidian\obsidian.json)
2. Common locations:
   • %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Obsidian
   • %USERPROFILE%\OneDrive\Documents\Obsidian
3. Environment variable OBSIDIAN_VAULT

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build
npm run build

# Run in development
npm run dev

# Type checking
npm run typecheck

Troubleshooting

• No vaults found: Make sure you have at least one Obsidian vault with .obsidian folder or .md files
• Permission errors: Run Claude Desktop as the same user who owns the vault files
• Path not found: Use full absolute paths for vault_path

Future Features

• Graph navigation (trace links N levels deep)
• Template execution
• Smart search with fuzzy matching
• Active file tracking
• Partial file updates (patch operations)
• Frontmatter management