Obsidian MCP

Access your Obsidian vault from Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and other AI tools that support the Model Context Protocol.

Obsidian 1.12 introduced a powerful CLI, but it isn't directly accessible from GUI-based AI tools like Claude Desktop. This MCP server bridges that gap — giving any MCP-compatible client full access to your vault through 34 tools and prompt templates.

Features: read/write/search notes, manage properties and tasks, run pre-built prompt workflows — all validated with Zod schemas and powered by the official Obsidian CLI.

Prerequisites

• Obsidian 1.12+ (tested through 1.12.7) with the CLI enabled: Settings → General → Advanced → Command Line Interface → Enable
• Obsidian app must be running (the CLI communicates with the app)

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Setup

Install the package from npm and configure your MCP client to use it. The server runs locally on your machine and communicates with the Obsidian app via its CLI.

How it works

Your machine
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ Claude Desktop / Claude Code│
│   ↕ stdio (stdin/stdout)    │
│ obsidian-mcp (Node.js)      │ ──CLI──→  Obsidian App (running)
└─────────────────────────────┘

Each user runs the server locally via npx. The server receives tool calls from Claude over stdio and executes Obsidian CLI commands against the running app.

Claude Desktop

Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@zethictech/obsidian-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "OBSIDIAN_VAULT": "MyVault"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after saving.

Claude Code

claude mcp add obsidian --env OBSIDIAN_VAULT="My Vault" -- npx -y @zethictech/obsidian-mcp

To make it available across all projects, add --scope user:

claude mcp add obsidian --scope user --env OBSIDIAN_VAULT="My Vault" -- npx -y @zethictech/obsidian-mcp

The -- separator is required so the command and its args aren't parsed as claude mcp add flags.

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
OBSIDIAN_VAULT	Yes	Vault name or ID
OBSIDIAN_CLI_PATH	No	Override path to obsidian binary (auto-detected by default)
OBSIDIAN_TIMEOUT	No	CLI timeout in milliseconds (default: 30000)

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Available Tools (34)

Read-only tools (20)

Tool	Description
read_note	Read the full content of a note
get_file_info	Get metadata about a file
list_files	List files in the vault
list_folders	List folders in the vault
search	Search the vault for text
search_with_context	Search with surrounding line context
get_backlinks	List incoming links to a note
get_links	List outgoing links from a note
find_unresolved_links	Find broken/unresolved links
find_orphan_notes	Find notes with no incoming links
get_outline	Get heading structure of a note
get_properties	List frontmatter properties
read_property	Read a specific property value
list_tags	List tags in the vault or a note
list_tasks	List tasks (checkboxes)
daily_read	Read today's daily note
daily_path	Get the daily note file path
get_vault_info	Get vault info (name, path, size)
wordcount	Count words/characters in a note
get_help	Get CLI help for any command

Write tools (9)

Tool	Description
create_note	Create a new note
append_note	Append content to a note
prepend_note	Prepend content to a note
set_property	Set a frontmatter property
daily_create	Open/create today's daily note
daily_append	Append to today's daily note
daily_prepend	Prepend to today's daily note
update_task	Toggle or update a task's status
add_bookmark	Add a bookmark

Destructive tools (5)

Tool	Description
move_note	Move a note (updates all links)
rename_note	Rename a note (updates all links)
delete_note	Delete a note (trash or permanent)
remove_property	Remove a frontmatter property
run_command	Run any CLI command directly

run_command is an escape hatch that gives you access to all ~100 CLI commands not covered by the structured tools above (sync, plugins, themes, templates, workspaces, publish, dev tools, etc.). Use get_help to discover available commands.

All tool inputs are validated at runtime using Zod schemas. Invalid inputs return clear error messages before any CLI command is executed.

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Prompts

Five pre-built MCP Prompts provide templated workflows. These gather vault data via CLI calls and return structured messages for the LLM.

Prompt	Arguments	Description
analyze_vault	—	Vault health overview: orphan notes, unresolved links, tags
summarize_note	file required	Read and summarize a specific note
find_related	file required	Find related notes via backlinks, links, and shared tags
daily_review	—	Review today's daily note and suggest follow-up actions
suggest_links	file required	Suggest wikilinks to add based on note content

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Troubleshooting

Server not starting?

• Verify OBSIDIAN_VAULT is set and matches your vault name exactly
• Ensure Obsidian 1.12+ is installed with the CLI enabled
• Run npx @zethictech/obsidian-mcp --version to verify the package loads

Obsidian app not detected?

• The CLI requires Obsidian to be running — start the app and try again
• If Obsidian just launched, wait a few seconds for it to fully initialize

Stale npx cache?

npx --yes @zethictech/obsidian-mcp

License

MIT