MCP server for Obsidian

1# MCP server for Obsidian
2 
3MCP server to interact with Obsidian via the Local REST API community plugin.
4 
5<a href="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/3wko1bhuek"><img width="380" height="200" src="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/3wko1bhuek/badge" alt="server for Obsidian MCP server" /></a>
6 
7## Components
8 
9### Tools
10 
11The server implements multiple tools to interact with Obsidian:
12 
13- list_files_in_vault: Lists all files and directories in the root directory of your Obsidian vault
14- list_files_in_dir: Lists all files and directories in a specific Obsidian directory
15- get_file_contents: Return the content of a single file in your vault.
16- search: Search for documents matching a specified text query across all files in the vault
17- patch_content: Insert content into an existing note relative to a heading, block reference, or frontmatter field.
18- append_content: Append content to a new or existing file in the vault.
19- delete_file: Delete a file or directory from your vault.
20 
21### Example prompts
22 
23Its good to first instruct Claude to use Obsidian. Then it will always call the tool.
24 
25The use prompts like this:
26- Get the contents of the last architecture call note and summarize them
27- Search for all files where Azure CosmosDb is mentioned and quickly explain to me the context in which it is mentioned
28- Summarize the last meeting notes and put them into a new note 'summary meeting.md'. Add an introduction so that I can send it via email.
29 
30## Configuration
31 
32### Obsidian REST API Key
33 
34There are two ways to configure the environment with the Obsidian REST API Key. 
35 
361. Add to server config (preferred)
37 
38```json
39{
40  "mcp-obsidian": {
41    "command": "uvx",
42    "args": [
43      "mcp-obsidian"
44    ],
45    "env": {
46      "OBSIDIAN_API_KEY": "<your_api_key_here>",
47      "OBSIDIAN_HOST": "<your_obsidian_host>",
48      "OBSIDIAN_PORT": "<your_obsidian_port>"
49    }
50  }
51}
52```
53Sometimes Claude has issues detecting the location of uv / uvx. You can use `which uvx` to find and paste the full path in above config in such cases.
54 
552. Create a `.env` file in the working directory with the following required variables:
56 
57```
58OBSIDIAN_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
59OBSIDIAN_HOST=your_obsidian_host
60OBSIDIAN_PORT=your_obsidian_port
61```
62 
63Note:
64- You can find the API key in the Obsidian plugin config
65- Default port is 27124 if not specified
66- Default host is 127.0.0.1 if not specified
67 
68## Quickstart
69 
70### Install
71 
72#### Obsidian REST API
73 
74You need the Obsidian REST API community plugin running: https://github.com/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api
75 
76Install and enable it in the settings and copy the api key.
77 
78#### Claude Desktop
79 
80On MacOS: `~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`
81 
82On Windows: `%APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`
83 
84<details>
85  <summary>Development/Unpublished Servers Configuration</summary>
86  
87```json
88{
89  "mcpServers": {
90    "mcp-obsidian": {
91      "command": "uv",
92      "args": [
93        "--directory",
94        "<dir_to>/mcp-obsidian",
95        "run",
96        "mcp-obsidian"
97      ],
98      "env": {
99        "OBSIDIAN_API_KEY": "<your_api_key_here>",
100        "OBSIDIAN_HOST": "<your_obsidian_host>",
101        "OBSIDIAN_PORT": "<your_obsidian_port>"
102      }
103    }
104  }
105}
106```
107</details>
108 
109<details>
110  <summary>Published Servers Configuration</summary>
111  
112```json
113{
114  "mcpServers": {
115    "mcp-obsidian": {
116      "command": "uvx",
117      "args": [
118        "mcp-obsidian"
119      ],
120      "env": {
121        "OBSIDIAN_API_KEY": "<YOUR_OBSIDIAN_API_KEY>",
122        "OBSIDIAN_HOST": "<your_obsidian_host>",
123        "OBSIDIAN_PORT": "<your_obsidian_port>"
124      }
125    }
126  }
127}
128```
129</details>
130 
131## Development
132 
133### Building
134 
135To prepare the package for distribution:
136 
1371. Sync dependencies and update lockfile:
138```bash
139uv sync
140```
141 
142### Debugging
143 
144Since MCP servers run over stdio, debugging can be challenging. For the best debugging
145experience, we strongly recommend using the [MCP Inspector](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/inspector).
146 
147You can launch the MCP Inspector via [`npm`](https://docs.npmjs.com/downloading-and-installing-node-js-and-npm) with this command:
148 
149```bash
150npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv --directory /path/to/mcp-obsidian run mcp-obsidian
151```
152 
153Upon launching, the Inspector will display a URL that you can access in your browser to begin debugging.
154 
155You can also watch the server logs with this command:
156 
157```bash
158tail -n 20 -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-mcp-obsidian.log
159```
160