bb - AI agentic IDE

bb - AI agentic IDE

Embeds bb — a local AI agentic IDE with a desktop app — inside an Obsidian tab or sidebar, via its local web interface.

Requires the bb desktop app to be installed. This plugin has no functionality on its own — it is a thin wrapper around bb's local UI, for people who already use bb.

What it does

• Ribbon icon and Open bb command open bb as a tab (or sidebar) inside Obsidian.
• Where to open setting: main area / left sidebar / right sidebar.
• If bb's local server isn't responding, quietly launches the bb desktop app in the background; if bb isn't installed, shows a notice with a copyable npx bb-app@latest install command.
• Optionally sets provider / model / permission mode defaults for the bb project that matches the current vault path, if that project already exists in bb.
• Zoom control (50–200%) for the embedded view.

Network requests and local data access

This plugin only ever talks to your own machine — it makes no requests to any remote server:

• It loads a <webview> pointed at http://localhost:38886 by default (configurable), which is bb's own local HTTP interface served by the bb desktop app.
• If that local address doesn't respond, it runs open -g -b dev.bb.desktop to launch the bb app in the background.
• If the "set project defaults" setting is on, it reads and writes bb's local SQLite database at ~/.bb/bb.db (via the sqlite3 CLI) to look up the bb project matching the current vault path and set its default provider/model/permission mode.

Reviewer notes: shell access and clipboard

Two automated-review warnings apply to this plugin. Both are intentional, and both are scoped to the user's own machine:

• Shell execution (child_process) — used in exactly three places, all with fixed, non-user-controlled arguments:
  • exec("open -g -b dev.bb.desktop") launches the bb desktop app in the background when its local server is not responding (macOS only; this plugin is desktop-only).
  • execFile("sqlite3", [...]) reads and writes ~/.bb/bb.db to set the per-project provider/model/permission defaults. The SQL is built from the current vault path (single-quote escaped) and the plugin's own settings — no arbitrary command execution.
• Clipboard access — only when the user clicks the npx bb-app@latest code snippet in the "bb not found" notice, to copy that install command. Nothing else is read from or written to the clipboard.

No telemetry and no remote requests: the only network target is bb's local web interface on localhost.

Settings

• bb URL — local address of bb's web interface.
• Auto-launch bb.app — launch bb in the background if its server isn't running.
• Set project defaults on open — sync provider/model/permission mode into bb for this vault's project.
• Always open a new tab — vs. reusing/reloading an existing bb tab.
• Where to open the bb tab — main area, left sidebar, or right sidebar.
• Provider / Model / Permission mode — the defaults applied when syncing.
• Font size (zoom) — zoom level of the embedded view.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Copy them into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/bb-ai-agent/.
3. Reload Obsidian, then enable bb - AI agentic IDE under Settings → Community plugins.

License

MIT