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MCP Connector

by istefox
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Description

This plugin has not been manually reviewed by Obsidian staff. Connect MCP-compatible clients (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cline) to your vault with semantic search, templates, file management and gated command execution.

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Changelog

See all version on GitHub

README file from

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MCP Connector for Obsidian

GitHub release (latest by date) Build status License

Features | Installation | Quick setup for clients | Migration from 0.3.x | Prompts | Command execution | Troubleshooting | Security | Development | Support

MCP Connector lets AI applications like Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Continue, Windsurf, and VS Code securely access and work with your Obsidian vault through the Model Context Protocol. 1

Architecture

Starting with 0.4.0, the plugin hosts the MCP server in-process inside Obsidian and exposes Streamable HTTP on 127.0.0.1:27200. There is no native binary shipped from this repository — eliminating the supply-chain risk that comes with downloading and executing a platform-specific executable from GitHub Releases.

  • HTTP-native MCP clients (Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Continue, Windsurf, VS Code) connect directly to the local HTTP endpoint.
  • Claude Desktop (which speaks only stdio MCP) connects through the official npx mcp-remote bridge — a two-line config the plugin generates for you.
  • Native semantic search runs entirely on-device via Transformers.js + Xenova/all-MiniLM-L6-v2 (~25 MB, downloaded once and cached). No cloud, no Smart Connections requirement.
  • Local REST API is now optional: only the search_vault tool (Dataview DQL / JsonLogic queries) needs it, and that tool returns an actionable error if it isn't installed. The other 28 tools work without it. 2

Features

When connected to an MCP-compatible client, this plugin enables:

  • Vault access — read, write, and patch notes through 17 typed tools (get_vault_file, create_vault_file, patch_vault_file, rename_vault_file, list_vault_files, create_vault_directory, delete_vault_directory, …) with native binary content for images and audio. Missing parent directories on a create/append path are auto-created. rename_vault_file preserves link integrity across the vault via app.fileManager.renameFile.
  • Native semantic search — search_vault_smart over an on-device MiniLM index, with optional fallback to Smart Connections if it is installed. Provider tri-state setting (auto / native / smart-connections) under the plugin settings.
  • Plain-text + structured search — search_vault_simple (text + context windows) and search_vault (DQL / JsonLogic via Local REST API).
  • Template execution — invoke Templater templates as MCP tool calls with dynamic parameters.
  • Prompt library — author MCP prompts as markdown files in your vault's Prompts/ folder, with parameters defined inline via Templater syntax. See Using prompts below.
  • Command execution (opt-in) — authorize the agent to run specific Obsidian commands (e.g. editor:toggle-bold, graph:open) from a per-vault allowlist. Disabled by default; every invocation is audited. See Command execution below.
  • Web fetch — fetch tool retrieves arbitrary URLs and returns Markdown via Turndown, with pagination for long pages.
  • Tag listing — list_tags returns every tag in the vault with its usage count, sourced from app.metadataCache.getTags(). Inline #tags and frontmatter tags both included; no plugin dependency.
  • Tag-filtered file lookup — get_files_by_tag returns every file tagged with a given tag, with per-file occurrence count for relevance ranking. Optional includeNested to match #project against #project/active, #project/archived, etc. (mirrors Obsidian's tag pane).
  • Recent-file context — get_recent_files returns the most recently modified markdown files in the vault (ordered by mtime desc, with ctime and size per entry), honouring Obsidian's Files & Links → Excluded files configuration. Optional limit (1–100, default 20, fail-loud on out-of-range). Useful for agent-recency context without screen-scraping a file picker.
  • Partial-read access — get_vault_file_partial returns one of four slices of a file without loading the whole body: a single frontmatter field, the markdown section under a heading (nested paths via targetDelimiter, default "::"), the markdown range of a block reference, or a structured document-map outline (heading list + block-id list + frontmatter-field list, zero file I/O). Useful for context-window economics on large notes — spot-check a frontmatter field or grab a single section without paying for the full read.
  • Graph navigation — get_outgoing_links returns the body, embed, and frontmatter links emanating from a file (with resolved targetPath and resolved flag); get_backlinks returns every file that links to a given target, with per-source count. Both read-only, both backed by app.metadataCache.resolvedLinks / getFirstLinkpathDest.

29 MCP tools in total. Full list in the plugin's settings → Tools available section.

Prerequisites

Required

Optional

  • Templater — needed for the Prompt library and execute_template tool.
  • Local REST API — needed only for the search_vault tool (DQL / JsonLogic queries). All other tools work without it. 2
  • Smart Connections — alternative semantic-search backend. The native MiniLM provider works just as well; Smart Connections is only useful if you are already invested in its ecosystem.

Installation

There are two install paths depending on whether MCP Connector has finished community-store review.

Option A — Community plugin store (once approved)

  1. Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search "MCP Connector" by Stefano Ferri.
  2. Install + Enable.
  3. The first-load migration modal opens if you have a 0.3.x install — confirm or skip the steps it proposes (see Migration from 0.3.x below).
  4. Open the plugin settings and use the Quick setup for clients section to wire up your MCP client.

Option B — BRAT (available immediately)

While the community-store entry is in review, install via BRAT:

  1. Install and enable the Obsidian42 — BRAT plugin from the community store.
  2. Settings → BRAT → Add Beta plugin, paste istefox/obsidian-mcp-connector.
  3. BRAT installs the latest GitHub release; enable MCP Connector in Community plugins.
  4. The first-load migration modal opens if applicable; otherwise jump straight to Quick setup for clients in the plugin settings.

That's it. No binary to install, no separate download. The MCP server starts as soon as you enable the plugin.

Quick setup for clients

The plugin settings expose three Copy config buttons — one per supported client family. Each button copies a ready-to-paste JSON snippet to the clipboard.

Claude Desktop

Claude Desktop only speaks stdio MCP, so it reaches the in-process server through the official mcp-remote bridge (Anthropic-maintained, no third-party code in the auth path).

  1. Click Copy config for Claude Desktop. The snippet looks like: 
    {
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian-mcp-connector": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-remote",
        "http://127.0.0.1:27200/mcp",
        "--header",
        "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"
      ]
    }
  }
}
  2. Paste it into your claude_desktop_config.json (Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → Edit Config).
  3. Restart Claude Desktop.

Or tick Auto-write Claude Desktop config in the plugin settings — the plugin keeps the file in sync on token rotation, with a .backup written before each rewrite.

Claude Code

Claude Code speaks HTTP transport natively. Click Copy config for Claude Code and paste into ~/.claude.json (project scope) or ~/.claude/settings.json (global scope):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian-mcp-connector": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://127.0.0.1:27200/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or use claude mcp add from the CLI with the same fields.

Cursor / Cline / Continue / Windsurf / VS Code

Click Copy config for streamable-http clients. The snippet uses the generic streamable-http payload shape these clients accept; consult each client's own docs for the exact config-file location and any wrapping keys.

Verifying the setup

Once configured, your client should expose 29 MCP tools from this server, plus any prompts you have tagged with #mcp-tools-prompt in a Prompts/ folder at your vault root.

To verify the connection works end-to-end, ask the agent to call get_server_info. A successful response confirms the client can reach the in-process server and the bearer token is correct. For deeper inspection (request/response logs, tool schema inspection without an LLM in the loop), use @modelcontextprotocol/inspector:

npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/inspector
# point it at http://127.0.0.1:27200/mcp with your bearer token

Migration from 0.3.x

If you are upgrading from 0.3.x (the binary-shipping line), the first plugin load on 0.4.0 detects your existing state and opens a migration modal with up to three opt-in steps:

  1. Rewrite Claude Desktop config — replaces the old binary entry in claude_desktop_config.json with the mcp-remote bridge config. A .backup file is written before the rewrite. The legacy plugin config key (if present from 0.3.x) is removed at the same time.
  2. Delete the legacy binary — the orphan mcp-server binary at the previous install location (~/Library/Application Support/obsidian-mcp-tools/bin/, ~/.local/share/obsidian-mcp-tools/bin/, or %APPDATA%\obsidian-mcp-tools\bin\).
  3. Prune legacy plugin keys — installLocation and platformOverride keys in the plugin's data.json are no longer used in 0.4.0.

Each step is independent — a failure in one does not skip the others. The modal can be dismissed without action, and migration.skippedAt is persisted so it does not re-open on every plugin load.

If you skip the migration, the plugin still works — but you'll have an orphan binary on disk and a stale Claude Desktop config entry pointing at it.

Verifying the legacy binary is gone

After the migration modal completes step 2 (or after you remove the binary by hand), confirm that nothing lingers at the previous install location:

# macOS
ls ~/Library/Application\ Support/obsidian-mcp-tools/bin/mcp-server

# Linux
ls ~/.local/share/obsidian-mcp-tools/bin/mcp-server

# Windows (PowerShell)
Test-Path "$env:APPDATA\obsidian-mcp-tools\bin\mcp-server.exe"

A clean migration returns No such file or directory (macOS / Linux) or False (Windows). If the binary is still present, the modal's step 2 was either skipped, dismissed, or failed silently — remove the file manually and restart your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cowork, Cursor, …) so it reconnects through the in-process HTTP transport instead of the legacy stdio path.

If you dismissed the modal accidentally, you can re-open the migration check from Settings → MCP Tools → Migration from 0.3.x → Re-run migration check.

Using prompts

The plugin lets you author MCP prompts as plain markdown files in your vault. Your prompt library lives alongside your notes, in a folder called Prompts/ at the root of the vault. Every MCP-compatible client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Continue, …) will surface these prompts in its own UI — typically as slash commands or attachments.

Requirements

  • The Templater plugin must be installed and enabled. The prompt feature uses Templater to render the template body.
  • A folder named exactly Prompts (capital P) at the root of your vault.

Creating a prompt in 60 seconds

  1. Create a new folder called Prompts at the root of your vault (if it doesn't exist already).

  2. Create a new markdown note inside it, e.g. Prompts/weekly-review.md.

  3. Add frontmatter with the mcp-tools-prompt tag and a short description:

    ---
tags:
  - mcp-tools-prompt
description: Summarize my recent daily notes on a given topic
---

Summarize my notes from the past **<% tp.mcpTools.prompt("days", "How many days back to look, e.g. 7") %>** days
about **<% tp.mcpTools.prompt("topic", "The subject — e.g. 'writing habits'") %>**.

Give me the three most recurring themes and one action item I should act on this week.

  4. Save the file.

  5. In your MCP client, refresh or reconnect to the server. The new prompt will appear — named after the filename (weekly-review.md) — with two parameters: days and topic.

  6. Invoke it from your client's UI (e.g. the attachment or slash-command menu in Claude Desktop), fill in the parameters, and the rendered text becomes the first message of a new conversation.

How parameters work

Parameters are declared inside the template body using a specific Templater pattern:

<% tp.mcpTools.prompt("parameter_name", "Description shown to the user") %>

The same call at execution time returns the user-supplied value. You can repeat the same parameter name throughout the template — it only shows up once in the client's input form, and the value is injected everywhere.

Other ways to tag a prompt

Instead of frontmatter, you can drop an inline #mcp-tools-prompt hashtag anywhere in the body. Both forms are accepted by the server. Use whichever fits your note-taking style.

Where is the full reference?

This section covers the 90% case. For the complete contract (folder naming, frontmatter schema, parameter parsing rules, execution flow, known limitations), see docs/features/prompt-system.md.

Command execution

The agent can run Obsidian commands on your behalf — the same entries you see in the command palette — but only if you explicitly authorize them. This feature is disabled by default and has no effect until you turn it on.

How it works

Two MCP tools are always advertised to the client:

  • list_obsidian_commands — read-only discovery, always safe. Returns every command registered in the vault (core + plugins), optionally filtered by a substring. Use this first to find the id of a command you want to allow.
  • execute_obsidian_command — gated. Every call is checked against your allowlist.
    • If the command is on your allowlist → it runs immediately.
    • If it is not on your allowlist (and the master toggle is ON) → a confirmation modal pops up in Obsidian with three buttons: Deny, Allow once, Allow always. The HTTP call long-polls for up to 30 seconds waiting for your decision. "Allow always" adds the command to your allowlist so future calls skip the modal.
    • If the master toggle is OFF → every call is denied immediately. No modal, no prompt.

On top of the allowlist + confirmation flow, execute_obsidian_command is rate-limited to 100 calls per minute (hard limit, server-side tumbling window) to protect the vault from runaway loops. The confirmation modal also surfaces a secondary soft warning at 30 calls/minute, visible to you as a red-bordered notice so you can abort a suspicious burst manually.

Destructive-command heuristic

If the command id or its human name contains a word commonly associated with data loss (delete, remove, uninstall, trash, clean/cleanup, purge, drop, reset, clear, wipe), the confirmation modal shows a red warning and disables the "Allow always" button. You can still run the command via "Allow once" — but the heuristic nudges you to think twice before adding it to your persistent allowlist. This is intentionally a nudge, not a gate: plugin authors use words creatively, so the filter catches the obvious cases and lets everything else through.

Enabling it

  1. Open Settings → Community plugins → MCP Connector → Command execution.
  2. Tick Enable MCP command execution. Save.
  3. From this point forward, whenever the agent invokes a command that is not on your allowlist, a modal will pop up asking for confirmation.
  4. If you prefer to pre-authorize commands up front (rather than hit a modal on first call), you have three ways:
    • Quick-add presets (fastest): expand Quick-add presets and click Add all next to Editing, Navigation, or Search. Each preset is a curated list of common, non-destructive built-ins; only commands that actually exist in your vault are added, and duplicates are skipped.
    • Browse available commands: expand the browser, filter by id or name, and click Add next to each command you trust.
    • Paste directly into the allowlist textarea — comma- or newline-separated. Either way, click Save to persist.

Advanced settings

Under the Advanced disclosure you can override the soft rate-limit warning threshold (default: 30 calls/minute). When the agent exceeds this rate, the confirmation modal surfaces a red banner so you can spot a runaway loop. The threshold is informational only — the in-process MCP server's hard limit of 100/minute is enforced server-side and is not configurable from the UI.

What gets logged

Every allow/deny decision is appended to a ring buffer of the last 50 invocations, visible under Recent invocations in the same settings section. The audit log includes the command id, the decision, the timestamp, and (for denied calls) the reason. The buffer is pruned automatically so data.json stays bounded.

You can export the current buffer as CSV via the Export CSV button at the top of the Recent invocations list. The download uses the fixed schema timestamp,commandId,decision,reason and is RFC 4180 quoted, so it opens cleanly in Excel, Numbers, LibreOffice, or any standard CSV reader.

Security model

  • Deny by default. The master toggle is off out of the box. An empty allowlist with the toggle on is still deny-all.
  • No wildcards. Allowlist entries must be exact command ids — there is no editor:* pattern.
  • No auto-discovery dumps. The agent must call list_obsidian_commands or the user must paste ids; the allowlist is never populated automatically.
  • Per-vault. The allowlist lives in each vault's plugin data.json. A different vault starts from zero.

For the full threat model and the rationale behind these decisions, see docs/design/issue-29-command-execution.md.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues:

Claude Desktop can't reach the server

  • Symptom: Claude Desktop logs show Failed to connect, ENOENT, or command not found.
  • Check: open the plugin settings → Quick setup for clients → the Node.js detection panel reports whether node and npx are reachable on the path Obsidian inherits when launched from Finder/Spotlight (a common gap on macOS for users who installed Node via Homebrew).
  • Fix: if the panel shows "Not found", click Install via Homebrew (macOS) or follow the platform-specific link to install Node manually. Restart Obsidian after installing.

tool/call returns HTTP 401

  • The bearer token in your client config does not match the plugin's current token. Open the plugin settings → Bearer token → click Show to reveal the current token and Copy to copy it. Update your client config and restart the client.

Native semantic search downloads slowly on first call

  • Expected. The first search_vault_smart call (when provider="native", or "auto" without Smart Connections) downloads ~25 MB from HuggingFace. The model is cached in the browser Cache API; subsequent reloads are instant.
  • A non-fatal warning Unable to determine content-length from response headers may appear in DevTools console during the first download — onnxruntime-web recovers via an expandable buffer; search results are unaffected.

Migration modal didn't run

  • The modal only opens if the first-load detector finds at least one of: legacy installLocation / platformOverride keys in data.json, an orphan mcp-server binary at the previous install location, or a Claude Desktop config entry pointing at the binary.
  • If you dismissed it accidentally, you can re-open it from the plugin settings → Migration from 0.3.x → Re-run migration check.

General logs

Open the plugin settings → Open Logs under Resources, or look at Obsidian's developer console (Cmd+Opt+I / Ctrl+Shift+I).

Security

No binary shipped

Starting with 0.4.0, this plugin does not ship a platform-specific binary. The MCP server runs in-process inside Obsidian's Electron renderer. Eliminating the binary closes the supply-chain attack surface that comes with auto-downloading and executing a signed-but-pre-built executable from GitHub Releases.

Local-only HTTP

The MCP server listens on 127.0.0.1:27200. The bind address is hardcoded to loopback; no external network exposure. Bearer-token authentication is required on every request; the token is generated per install and can be rotated from the plugin settings.

Bearer token

  • Generated locally on first plugin load, stored in the plugin's data.json (per-vault).
  • Visible in the plugin settings → Bearer token → Show (hidden by default).
  • Rotate invalidates the in-process transport and restarts it immediately, so the new token takes effect on the next request. Update your client configs after rotating.

Plugin runtime

  • All vault access goes through Obsidian's app.vault and app.workspace APIs (Obsidian's permission model applies).
  • Local REST API is no longer required for most tools — see Architecture.
  • Command execution is opt-in with a per-vault allowlist; see Command execution.

Reporting Security Issues

Please report security vulnerabilities via our security policy. Do not report security vulnerabilities in public issues.

Development

This project uses a Bun monorepo with a feature-based architecture. For the full architecture contract see .clinerules and docs/project-architecture.md.

Workspace

packages/
├── mcp-server/        # In-process MCP server (registered tools, ToolRegistry)
├── obsidian-plugin/   # Obsidian plugin (settings UI, migration modal, transport)
├── shared/            # Shared ArkType schemas and types
└── test-site/         # SvelteKit harness (dev-only, not shipped)

Building

bun install                    # Install workspace dependencies
bun run check                  # Type-check every package
bun run dev                    # Watch all packages
bun run build                  # Production build

The plugin's main.js is written at the package root (packages/obsidian-plugin/main.js); Obsidian expects that path. Do not move it.

Requirements

  • Bun latest (pinned via mise.toml)
  • TypeScript 5+

Contributing

Before contributing, please read our Contributing Guidelines including our community standards and behavioral expectations.

  1. Fork the repository.
  2. Create a feature branch from main (bug fix on the 0.3.x line) or feat/http-embedded (0.4.x work).
  3. Make your changes; keep PRs scoped.
  4. Run tests: 
    bun test
  5. Submit a pull request.

We welcome genuine contributions but maintain strict community standards. Be respectful and constructive in all interactions.

Support

  • Open an issue for bug reports and feature requests.
  • GitHub issues are the right channel for help with MCP Connector.

Please read our Contributing Guidelines before posting. We maintain high community standards and have zero tolerance for toxic behavior.

Changelog

See GitHub Releases on this fork and CHANGELOG.md for the detailed changelog.

Other MCP servers by istefox

  • istefox-dt-mcp — MCP server for DEVONthink 4 (macOS). Six outcome-oriented tools, preview-then-apply with audit log + selective undo, optional local RAG (ChromaDB + sentence-transformers), .mcpb bundle for Claude Desktop. Privacy-first, local-only. Listed on Glama. MIT.

License

MIT License — Licensed MIT; portions originally derived from an MIT-licensed project — see LICENSE.

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. For more information about the Model Context Protocol, see MCP Introduction. ↩

  2. Local REST API was a hard requirement on the 0.3.x line. Starting with 0.4.0 it is optional and only enables the search_vault tool (DQL / JsonLogic queries). The other 28 tools work without it; search_vault returns an actionable error if it isn't installed. As of 0.4.5, search_vault reads the LRA host and port from the plugin's live settings instead of a hardcoded 127.0.0.1:27124, so reconfiguring LRA's listen port no longer requires a plugin restart. ↩ ↩2

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