Obsidian MCP server

The MCP server for Obsidian enables interaction with your Obsidian vault through Claude AI, leveraging the Local REST API community plugin. This integration allows you to search, retrieve, modify, and manage your Obsidian notes directly through conversational prompts.

Installation

Prerequisites

You need to install the Obsidian Local REST API community plugin before setting up the MCP server:

1. Open Obsidian and go to Settings > Community plugins
2. Search for "Local REST API" or visit https://github.com/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api
3. Install and enable the plugin
4. Note the API key from the plugin settings

Setting Up the MCP Server

Configure Claude Desktop

You need to update your Claude Desktop configuration file:

On MacOS:

~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

On Windows:

%APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Add the following configuration to the JSON file:

{
  "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>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Notes:

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

Alternatively, you can create a .env file in your working directory with these environment variables:

OBSIDIAN_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
OBSIDIAN_HOST=your_obsidian_host
OBSIDIAN_PORT=your_obsidian_port

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 directory of your vault
• list_files_in_dir: Lists all files and directories in a specific Obsidian directory
• get_file_contents: Returns the content of a single file in your vault
• search: Searches for documents matching a text query 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 in the vault
• delete_file: Deletes a file or directory from your vault

Example Prompts

For best results, first instruct Claude to use Obsidian. This ensures it will utilize the appropriate tools.

Try prompts like these:

• "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."

Debugging

If you encounter issues, you can check the server logs with:

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

How to add this MCP server to 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 > MCP and click "Add new global MCP server".

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

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "cursor-rules-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "cursor-rules-mcp"
            ]
        }
    }
}

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 explictly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.