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)

---

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) |

---

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.

---

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 |

---

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