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

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

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.