obsidian-mcp-server

An MCP server that gives Claude direct access to your Obsidian vault — read, write, search, daily notes, tags, backlinks, frontmatter, and automatic git sync so your vault stays up to date across every device.

Tools

Related MCP server: obsidian-mcp

Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+

• A GitHub account

• Your Obsidian vault on your local machine

0. Set up your vault as a git repo

If your vault isn't already on GitHub, do this once:

cd "/path/to/your/Obsidian Vault"
git init
git branch -m main
git add -A
git commit -m "initial commit"

Then create a repo on GitHub (private recommended) and link it:

gh repo create my-obsidian-vault --private --source=. --remote=origin --push
# or without the GitHub CLI:
git remote add origin https://github.com/yourusername/my-obsidian-vault.git
git push -u origin main

On any other device, just clone it:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/my-obsidian-vault.git "/path/to/vault"

1. Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/aumsuthar/obsidian-mcp-server.git
cd obsidian-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build

2. Configure environment

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env and set OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH to the absolute path of your vault on this device:

OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH="/Users/you/Documents/My Vault"

That's the only required variable. See .env.example for optional settings (daily notes format, auto-sync intervals, etc.).

3. Register with Claude

Add to ~/.mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "--env-file=/path/to/obsidian-mcp-server/.env",
        "/path/to/obsidian-mcp-server/dist/index.js"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Code or Claude Desktop to pick it up.

Cross-device sync

Your vault path is set per-device in .env — so on each machine you just clone the vault repo, clone this repo, set OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH in .env, and you're done. The vault content stays in sync via git.

Workflow:

1. On device A: Claude writes a note → auto-commits and pushes to GitHub

2. On device B: call obsidian_pull (or set OBSIDIAN_AUTO_PULL_MINUTES) before reading

Auto-sync

Set these in .env to sync automatically in the background:

OBSIDIAN_AUTO_PUSH_MINUTES=5   # commit and push every 5 minutes if there are changes
OBSIDIAN_AUTO_PULL_MINUTES=5   # pull every 5 minutes

Daily notes

obsidian_today creates a daily note in the Daily/ folder using the YYYY-MM-DD format by default.

To customize:

OBSIDIAN_DAILY_DIR="Journal"
OBSIDIAN_DAILY_FORMAT="YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-DD"

If a Templates/Daily.md exists in your vault, it will be used as the template. Supported variables: {{date}}, {{title}}.

Templates

Put .md files in your vault's Templates/ folder (configurable via OBSIDIAN_TEMPLATES_DIR). Call obsidian_template with the template name and any variables to substitute.

Example template Templates/Meeting.md:

---
date: {{date}}
type: meeting
---
# {{title}}

## Attendees

## Notes

## Action items

Development

npm run dev     # run with tsx (no build needed, loads .env)
npm run build   # compile to dist/