Obsidian MCP server

The MCP server for Obsidian enables seamless interaction with your Obsidian vault through Claude AI, using the Local REST API community plugin. This integration allows you to search, retrieve, create, and modify notes in your Obsidian vault through natural language commands.

Installation

Prerequisites

You need to install the Obsidian Local REST API community plugin before using this MCP server:

1. Open Obsidian
2. Go to Settings → Community plugins → Browse
3. Search for "Local REST API"
4. Install and enable the plugin
5. Copy the API key from the plugin's settings page

Setting Up the MCP Server

Installing in Claude Desktop

1. First, locate your Claude Desktop configuration file:

   • MacOS: ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Edit the configuration file to add the MCP server:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-obsidian": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-obsidian"
      ],
      "env": {
        "OBSIDIAN_API_KEY": "<YOUR_OBSIDIAN_API_KEY>",
        "OBSIDIAN_HOST": "<your_obsidian_host>",
        "OBSIDIAN_PORT": "<your_obsidian_port>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note:

• Replace <YOUR_OBSIDIAN_API_KEY> with the API key from the Obsidian plugin
• The default host is 127.0.0.1 if not specified
• The default port is 27124 if not specified

Usage

Available Tools

The MCP server provides several tools for interacting with your Obsidian vault:

• list_files_in_vault: Lists all files and directories in the root of your vault
• list_files_in_dir: Lists all files and directories in a specific folder
• get_file_contents: Retrieves the content of a specific file
• search: Searches for text across all files in the vault
• patch_content: Inserts content into an existing note (relative to a heading, block reference, or frontmatter field)
• append_content: Appends content to a new or existing file
• delete_file: Deletes a file or directory from your vault

Using with Claude

Start by instructing Claude to use Obsidian for best results. Here are some example prompts:

• "Get the contents of the last architecture call note and summarize them"
• "Search for all files where Azure CosmosDb is mentioned and quickly explain the context"
• "Summarize the last meeting notes and put them into a new note 'summary meeting.md'. Add an introduction so that I can send it via email."

Alternative Configuration

If you prefer not to add your API key directly to the server config, you can create a .env file in the working directory with the following variables:

OBSIDIAN_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
OBSIDIAN_HOST=your_obsidian_host
OBSIDIAN_PORT=your_obsidian_port

Troubleshooting

If Claude has issues detecting the location of uvx, you can use the which uvx command to find the full path and update your configuration accordingly.

You can also monitor server logs with:

tail -n 20 -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp-server-mcp-obsidian.log

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "mcp-obsidian" '{"command":"uvx","args":["mcp-obsidian"],"env":{"OBSIDIAN_API_KEY":"<your_api_key_here>","OBSIDIAN_HOST":"<your_obsidian_host>","OBSIDIAN_PORT":"<your_obsidian_port>"}}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-obsidian": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-obsidian"
            ],
            "env": {
                "OBSIDIAN_API_KEY": "<your_api_key_here>",
                "OBSIDIAN_HOST": "<your_obsidian_host>",
                "OBSIDIAN_PORT": "<your_obsidian_port>"
            }
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mcp-obsidian": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-obsidian"
            ],
            "env": {
                "OBSIDIAN_API_KEY": "<your_api_key_here>",
                "OBSIDIAN_HOST": "<your_obsidian_host>",
                "OBSIDIAN_PORT": "<your_obsidian_port>"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect