Obsidian MCP Agent

A custom Python MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that turns rough, train-of-thought notes into properly formatted, cross-linked notes in an Obsidian vault — using Claude Desktop as the interface, with no coding required at use-time.

The Problem

I take a lot of notes during coursework and independent learning, usually typed quickly and messily during or right after a lecture. Cleaning those up into a properly formatted, well-organized note — consistent tagging, inline links to related topics, clear structure — is repetitive and easy to put off. The raw notes pile up in an "unsorted" backlog instead of becoming useful, searchable knowledge.

Related MCP server: obsidian-mcp

What This Does

Point Claude Desktop at this MCP server, say something like "clean up my Obsidian backlog," and it will:

1. Read each raw note sitting in the vault's inbox folder.

2. Rewrite it into a consistent template — abstract, sections, references — while preserving all the original substance.

3. Tag it using only tags that already exist in the vault (never inventing new ones).

4. Add inline [[wikilinks]] to genuinely related existing notes, verified by actually reading the candidate note first — not just matching titles.

5. Save it to the correct folder and archive the original raw note.

6. If a note with the same name already exists, it stops and asks — it never silently overwrites.

Before/after example: see example/before-raw-inbox-note.md and example/after-formatted-note.md.

Architecture

Built with FastMCP, running as a local stdio server that Claude Desktop launches as a subprocess — no API key, no cloud hosting, uses an existing Claude Pro subscription.

Tools exposed:

All file paths are validated against the vault root to prevent path traversal outside the vault.

Setup

1. Clone this repo.

2. Create a virtual environment and install dependencies:

   python -m venv .venv .venv\Scripts\activate # Windows pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Set the OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH environment variable to your vault's absolute path.

4. Add this server to your claude_desktop_config.json:

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "obsidian-mcp-agent": {
        "command": "/path/to/.venv/Scripts/python.exe",
        "args": ["/path/to/server.py"],
        "env": {
          "OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH": "/path/to/your/vault"
        }
      }
    }
  }

5. Fully restart Claude Desktop.

6. Adjust folder-guide.md and processing-instructions.md to match your own vault's conventions — these are personal to how I organize notes and will need editing for a different vault structure.

What's Next

• A template-selection step for coursework that uses a different note format (currently only one template is supported).

• Automated validation of tag/wikilink formatting in generated output, rather than manual review.

• Possibly extending beyond a chat-driven workflow to something workflow-embedded — this was intentionally out of scope for this build.

Notes on This Project

Built as a weekend project to learn MCP server design (tools vs. resources, path safety, conflict handling) rather than to build the most sophisticated possible agent. The example/ folder uses entirely made-up content — no real personal notes are included in this repo.