Obsidian Chat

An agentic AI chat plugin for Obsidian. Two providers, best models, no bloat.

Philosophy

Existing AI plugins for Obsidian are overcomplicated, break on mobile, or require a dozen settings to configure. Obsidian Chat takes the opposite approach: pick a provider, enter your API key, and start talking. The AI reads your notes, makes edits, creates files, and asks clarifying questions, all through a simple chat interface.

Mobile is a first-class citizen, not an afterthought.

Providers

Provider	Default Model	Features
Anthropic	Claude Sonnet 4.6	Adaptive thinking, web search, prompt caching
OpenAI	Codex 5.3	Responses API, reasoning, web search

That's it. Two providers. The best models. Fetch the full model list from the API with the refresh button if you want something different.

What the AI can do

The chat assistant has 14 tools that map directly to Obsidian's Vault API:

• read_document / read_file: Read any note in your vault
• edit_document: Find-and-replace, insert, or replace content
• search_vault: Search filenames and content
• create_file: Create new notes with suggested paths
• rename_file: Rename or move files (updates all links)
• delete_file: Move files to trash
• list_files: Browse vault structure
• open_document: Navigate to a file in the editor
• get_properties: Read YAML frontmatter as structured data
• set_properties: Update frontmatter properties (uses Obsidian's native API)
• get_backlinks: Find all notes that link to a given document
• get_current_datetime: Get the current date and time in the user's locale
• ask_user: Ask you a question when something is ambiguous

The AI reads before it edits, prefers surgical find-and-replace over full rewrites, and acts on your confirmations without re-asking.

Selection scope

Select text in a note, right-click, and choose "Send selection to Chat". The selection appears as a pill above the input. The AI works only within that selection, leaving the rest of the document untouched. Dismiss the pill to go back to full-document mode.

Install

Via BRAT (recommended for now)

1. Install BRAT from Community Plugins
2. In BRAT settings, click "Add Beta plugin"
3. Enter: omarshahine/obsidian-chat
4. Enable the plugin in Community Plugins

Manual

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
2. Create <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-chat/
3. Copy the files there
4. Enable in Community Plugins

Setup

1. Open Settings > Obsidian Chat
2. Pick Anthropic or OpenAI
3. Enter your API key (stored per-provider in your OS keychain via SecretStorage, never synced)
4. Click the refresh icon next to Model to load available models
5. Open the chat from the ribbon icon, command palette, or context menu

Commands

Command	Description
Open chat	Open the chat sidebar
New chat	Start a new session, leaving existing ones intact
Chat about this note	Send the active note to chat (editor required)
Send selection to Chat	Send selected text with scoped context
Copy conversation transcript	Export the active session's conversation to clipboard
Clear conversation	Empty the active session (keeps the session)

Chat sessions

Multiple conversations can be open at once. Each keeps its own transcript and its own agent state, so context never carries between them.

• New chat starts a session; existing ones keep their history.
• Once more than one session exists, a dropdown appears in the chat header to switch between them. Sessions are named after their first message.
• Sessions are not scoped to a note — a chat can range across the whole vault, which is the point of the plugin. "Chat about this note" and "Send selection to Chat" start a new session rather than interrupting the one you are in.
• Switching is blocked while a response is streaming, so a reply always lands in the conversation that asked for it.
• The 20 most recently used sessions are kept; older ones are dropped.

Context menus

• File explorer: Right-click any markdown file > "Chat about this note"
• Editor: Right-click selected text > "Send selection to Chat"
• Ribbon icon: Right-click for quick actions menu

Design decisions

Decision	Why
Two providers only	Simplicity. Anthropic and OpenAI cover the best models.
No streaming	Obsidian's requestUrl() doesn't support it. Required for mobile.
Conversation persistence	Chat history survives Obsidian restarts. Stored locally in chat-state.json, never synced.
No vault indexing	Linear search capped at results limit. Avoids mobile memory issues.
Svelte 5 UI	Compiles away to vanilla JS. Reactive state without React's runtime overhead.
Right sidebar on mobile	Slides in from the edge, keeping your document underneath.
Per-device API keys	Stored in OS keychain via SecretStorage. Never synced, never in data.json.

Development

git clone https://github.com/omarshahine/obsidian-chat.git
cd obsidian-chat
npm install
npm run dev    # Watch mode
npm run build  # Production build

Symlink into your vault for testing:

ln -s /path/to/obsidian-chat /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-chat

License

MIT