Obsidian MCP Server

A lightweight Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables AI assistants like Cursor & Claude to read from and write to your Obsidian vault.

Example Interactions

• “Create a new note for standup tomorrow describing the code changes I’ve made today” (should also use Git)
• “Check my notes about project ideas”
• “Check what todos I have related to refactoring”

Tools

Read

1. getAllFilenames

   • Gets a list of all filenames in the Obsidian vault
   • Useful for discovering what files are available

2. readMultipleFiles

   • Retrieves the contents of specified files from the Obsidian vault
   • Supports exact filenames, partial filenames, or case-insensitive matches
   • Each file’s content is prefixed with ‘# File: filename’ for clear identification

3. getOpenTodos

   • Retrieves all open TODO items from markdown files in the Obsidian vault
   • Finds unchecked checkbox items (lines containing '- [ ] ')
   • Returns them with their file locations

Write

1. updateFileContent
   • Updates the content of a specified file in the Obsidian vault with new markdown content
   • If the file doesn’t exist, it will be created
   • Automatically creates any necessary directories

Install & build

npm install obsidian-mcp-server
npm run build

Integrating with Claude Desktop and Cursor

To use your MCP server with Claude Desktop add it to your Claude configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": [
        "obsidian-mcp-server/build/index.js",
        "/path/to/your/vault"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Cursor go to the MCP tab Cursor Settings (command + shift + J). Add a server with this command:

node obsidian-mcp-server/build/index.js /path/to/your/vault

Comparison with Other Solutions

While this implementation is intentionally lightweight, other solutions like jacksteamdev/obsidian-mcp-tools offer a more feature-rich approach as an Obsidian plugin.

This standalone server has the advantage of direct filesystem access without requiring the Obsidian application to be running.

Resources

• Model Context Protocol Documentation
• MCP Servers Repository