Obsidian Vault MCP (free, no card, no always-on computer needed)

This gives Claude (mobile, desktop, web) read access to your Obsidian vault through a small server hosted for free on Render, reading straight from a GitHub repo. Your vault syncs to GitHub from your phone and desktop via the Obsidian Git plugin — nothing needs to stay powered on.

Pieces

• GitHub repo — the vault's source of truth (free, private).

• Obsidian Git plugin — auto-commits/pushes/pulls from desktop + phone.

• This MCP server — reads the repo via GitHub's API, exposes list_notes, read_note, search_notes over MCP. Deployed free on Render.

• Graphify — optional, run locally, commit its output into the repo like any other notes.

Related MCP server: Obsidian MCP Server

1. Create the GitHub repo

1. github.com → New repository → name it e.g. obsidian-vault → Private → Create.

2. Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Fine-grained token:

   • Repository access: only this repo.

   • Permissions: Contents → Read and write (needed so Claude can create and edit notes, not just read them).

   • Copy the token — you'll paste it into Render as GITHUB_TOKEN.

2. Wire up Obsidian Git (desktop + phone)

1. Obsidian → Settings → Community plugins → browse → install Obsidian Git.

2. Point your vault folder at a local clone of the repo (or git init it in place and add the GitHub repo as origin).

3. In the plugin settings, turn on auto backup on interval (e.g. every 10 min) and auto pull on load — it'll commit + push + pull for you.

4. On phone: install Obsidian mobile, add the same plugin (it works on iOS/Android), sign in to GitHub in the plugin's auth screen.

Now every device pushes/pulls to the same repo — that repo is your sync layer.

3. Deploy the MCP server to Render (free)

1. Push this folder (server.js, package.json, render.yaml) to its own public or private GitHub repo (separate from the vault repo).

2. render.com → New → Web Service → connect that repo.

3. It should auto-detect render.yaml. If not: Build command npm install, Start command npm start, plan Free.

4. Add environment variables:

   • GITHUB_TOKEN — the fine-grained token from step 1

   • GITHUB_OWNER — your GitHub username

   • GITHUB_REPO — your vault repo name (e.g. obsidian-vault)

   • GITHUB_BRANCH — main (or whatever your default branch is)

   • MCP_SHARED_SECRET — make up a random string; this keeps randoms who find your Render URL from reading your vault

5. Deploy. You'll get a URL like https://obsidian-vault-mcp.onrender.com.

Free tier note: it sleeps after ~15 min idle and takes a few seconds to wake on the next request — fine for occasional Claude queries.

4. Connect it to Claude

In Claude → Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector:

• URL: https://<your-app>.onrender.com/mcp

• Header: Authorization: Bearer <your MCP_SHARED_SECRET>

Then just ask Claude to search, read, or edit your notes — it'll call search_notes / read_note / list_notes / write_note / delete_note automatically. Writes commit straight to the repo, so they'll show up on your phone/desktop next time Obsidian Git syncs (or immediately if you have auto-pull-on-interval turned on).

Heads up on writes: write_note overwrites the whole file — for edits to an existing note, have Claude read it first, then write back the full updated content. delete_note is a real, permanent git commit; it's worth asking Claude to confirm with you before deleting anything.

5. Graphify — automatic, free, no hosting needed

Graphify builds a knowledge graph from your notes. Semantic extraction needs an LLM, and the free option that doesn't need any hosting is Google's Gemini API free tier (no credit card, doesn't expire).

Get a free Gemini key:

1. Go to aistudio.google.com, sign in with a Google account.

2. Get API key → Create API key. Copy it.

Add the GitHub Actions workflow:

1. In your vault repo, create .github/workflows/graphify.yml with the contents from this project's vault-workflow/.github/workflows/graphify.yml.

2. Repo → Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → New repository secret:

   • Name: GEMINI_API_KEY

   • Value: the key from AI Studio

3. Repo → Settings → Actions → General → Workflow permissions → set to Read and write permissions (so the workflow can commit the graph back).

4. It runs automatically once a day, and also whenever you push a change to the vault. You can also trigger it manually from the repo's Actions tab.

This produces graphify-out/graph.json and graphify-out/GRAPH_REPORT.md in your vault repo — no server, no Space, nothing to keep running.

The MCP server already has tools for it (graph_overview, graph_find_node, graph_neighbors) — they read the graph straight from GitHub the same way read_note does. Nothing extra to deploy; just redeploy the updated server.js to Render and they'll show up next time Claude connects.

Local test (optional, before deploying)

npm install
GITHUB_TOKEN=xxx GITHUB_OWNER=you GITHUB_REPO=obsidian-vault npm start

Then POST to http://localhost:3000/mcp with an MCP client, or just deploy straight to Render and test through Claude.