Obsidian Integration

How It Works

Claude Code reads and writes markdown files directly on your filesystem. Obsidian watches the same directory and renders changes in real time. No middleware, no server, no MCP.

This is the approach Karpathy describes: “I have the LLM agent open on one side and Obsidian on the other. The LLM makes edits based on our conversation, and I browse the results in real time.”

Why No MCP

MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers for Obsidian exist — there are 15+ on GitHub. We evaluated them and decided against requiring one:

Claude Code already reads/writes files. An MCP adds a dependency for zero functional gain.
Obsidian doesn’t need to be running. Our system works whether Obsidian is open or not.
index.md does 80% of navigation. Claude reads the index to find pages, then reads those pages. Simple and effective up to ~200 pages.
Fewer moving parts. No server to start, no port to configure, no API key.

When You Might Want MCP

Situation	Recommended MCP
Wiki exceeds ~200 pages	qmd — hybrid BM25/vector search with MCP server mode
You use Claude Desktop (not Code)	mcpvault — `npx @bitbonsai/mcpvault@latest /path/to/vault`
You want Dataview queries from Claude	aaronsb/obsidian-mcp-plugin — runs inside Obsidian
Multi-client access (Code + Desktop)	obsidian-claude-code-mcp by iansinnott

qmd: The One Tool Worth Adding

qmd by Tobi Lutke is a local markdown search engine. Hybrid BM25 + vector search, all on-device. It has both a CLI and an MCP server.

brew install qmd

# CLI (used by /search skill):
qmd search "vaults/my-research/wiki" "deployment patterns"

# MCP server (add to .claude/settings.json):
{ "mcpServers": { "qmd": { "command": "qmd", "args": ["mcp", "--dir", "vaults/my-research/wiki"] } } }

Recommended Plugins

Plugin	Type	Purpose
Graph View	Built-in	Visualize wiki connections
Backlinks	Built-in	See what links to current page
Dataview	Community	Query pages by frontmatter fields
Local Images Plus	Community	Download remote images to local
Marp Slides	Community	Preview generated slide decks
Web Clipper	Browser ext	Clip articles to `raw/`

Setup Tips

Open vaults/<name>/ as an Obsidian vault (not the engine root)
Set default attachment location to raw/assets in Obsidian settings
In Graph View, filter by wiki/ to hide raw sources
Color graph nodes by folder for visual distinction between page types