Recalla for Obsidian

Make your Obsidian vault a fast, private, agent-readable brain. Recalla indexes your notes into agent-readable cards, serves a local HTTP search API on 127.0.0.1:8090, and exposes an MCP server so AI agents can read your vault. Everything runs locally, and you never have to touch a terminal.

The plugin runs a small standalone Recalla engine in the background and adds an in-Obsidian chat panel and search panel plus one-click setup commands. Nothing to install by hand: the plugin downloads the engine for your operating system on demand.

What it does

• Downloads and manages the Recalla engine automatically (no Python, no terminal).

• Indexes your vault into agent-readable cards.

• Runs a local HTTP API (127.0.0.1:8090 by default) for fast search.

• Adds a right-sidebar chat panel that answers from your vault with clickable source links.

• Provides an in-Obsidian search panel backed by that API.

• Copies a ready-to-paste MCP config so AI agents can connect to your vault.

• Generates AGENTS.md and llms.txt for agent tooling.

Related MCP server: Obsidian MCP Tool Server

Requirements

• Obsidian 1.4.0 or newer (desktop only, since the plugin runs a local engine).

That is it. The first time you need the engine, run Recalla: Make my vault agent-readable or Recalla: Download or update the engine and the plugin fetches the correct standalone binary from the latest GitHub release, caches it under the plugin folder, and uses it for everything.

Advanced users can point the plugin at their own engine build via the Custom engine path setting. Resolution order is: custom path, then the downloaded engine, then recalla on your PATH.

Answering questions

The chat panel runs recalla ask locally. To get answers you need a language model:

• Set OPENAI_API_KEY in your environment for OpenAI, or

• Set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY for Claude, or

• Run a local model with Ollama, which needs no key.

Restart Obsidian after setting an environment variable so it is picked up.

Install (manual)

1. Build or download main.js and grab manifest.json from this repo.

2. Create the folder <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/recalla/.

3. Copy main.js and manifest.json (and styles.css if present) into that folder.

4. In Obsidian, open Settings, go to Community plugins, and enable "Recalla".

Community-plugin store submission is planned, after which you will be able to install it directly from inside Obsidian.

Build from source

npm install
npm run build

This produces main.js in the repo root.

Usage

Click the chat ribbon icon, or open the command palette and run any of these:

• Recalla: Make my vault agent-readable downloads the engine if needed, indexes the vault, and starts the local server, all in one click.

• Recalla: Download or update the engine fetches the latest engine binary.

• Recalla: Open chat opens the right-sidebar chat panel.

• Recalla: Reindex vault rebuilds the agent index.

• Recalla: Start local server starts the local HTTP API and MCP server.

• Recalla: Stop local server stops it.

• Recalla: Search vault (agent index) opens the in-Obsidian search panel.

• Recalla: Copy MCP config to clipboard copies an MCP server config for your agent.

• Recalla: Generate AGENTS.md and llms.txt writes agent-tooling files into the vault.

A status bar item shows the current state: Recalla: off, Recalla: running :8090, or Recalla: indexing....

Settings

• Recalla engine: shows engine status and a button to download or update it.

• Custom engine path: optional override. Leave empty to use the managed engine.

• Server port: local HTTP API port (default 8090, bound to 127.0.0.1).

• Auto-start server on load: start the server when Obsidian opens.

• Auto-reindex on save: reindex automatically after notes change (debounced).

License

Apache-2.0