Kotoba Insert

Kotoba Insert

Kotoba Insert is an English-language Obsidian plugin for quickly inserting Japanese vocabulary from an offline JMdict-derived dictionary.

Features

• Search a local Japanese dictionary and insert selected meanings with a Markdown template.
• Insert verified per-kanji or word-group furigana when the dictionary provides an alignment.
• Read Kotoba Insert furigana directly in Reading view and Live Preview. In the editor, furigana renders above the kanji until you place the cursor on that token, when the editable {word|reading} source is shown.
• Use a prompt you control with an OpenAI-compatible AI provider, preview the generated Markdown, and insert it at the cursor.

V1 workflow

1. Install the dictionary from Settings → Kotoba Insert.
2. Add Kotoba Insert: Search and insert Japanese vocabulary to Obsidian's mobile toolbar, or run it from the command palette.
3. Search any complete or partial Japanese written form, reading, or alternate form.
4. Select one entry, one or more senses, and a Markdown template from your configured vault folder.
5. Insert the rendered result at the editor cursor.

The default template is:

{{word_with_furigana}} — {{english_definitions}}

Kotoba Insert renders {word|reading} itself, so no separate Furigana plugin is required. When the installed dictionary contains an exact JmdictFurigana match for the selected written form and reading, {{word_with_furigana}} uses aligned segments instead: {食|た}べる. It otherwise safely falls back to {食べる|たべる}.

AI lookup

Configure the AI API base URL, model, API-key secret, and prompt folder in Settings → Kotoba Insert → AI lookup. The default base URL is OpenAI's https://api.openai.com/v1 and the default model is gpt-5.6-luna, but any provider compatible with the Chat Completions API can be configured.

API keys are selected by name through Obsidian's SecretStorage and are not saved in Kotoba Insert's plugin data. Create the default prompt in the configured kotoba-insert-prompt folder, or add your own Markdown prompt files. Choose a prompt for each AI lookup. The existing dictionary command opens the Dictionary tab; Kotoba Insert: Ask AI and insert Japanese study note opens the AI tab directly.

Template fields

word, reading, word_with_furigana, english_definitions, english_definition_1, part_of_speech, alternate_forms, priority, commonness, cross_references, antonyms, field_tags, usage_tags, and sense_notes.

Multi-sense values are semicolon-separated. An absent optional field becomes an empty string.

Privacy and data source

Dictionary lookups are local after installation. AI lookups send the entered term and selected prompt to the AI provider configured by the user; they can incur charges. The plugin does not send note content. See PRIVACY.md and NOTICE.md.

Support

If Kotoba Insert is useful to you, you can support its development through Buy Me a Coffee.

Development

npm install
npm run dev

For a production bundle, run npm run build.

Releases

The release workflow runs when you push a Git tag. Before tagging, update manifest.json and versions.json, commit the version change, and verify npm run check, npm test, and npm run build. The tag must exactly match manifest.json (for example, 0.1.0, not v0.1.0). The workflow creates a GitHub release with main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css attached.