Obsidian Index MCP server

This MCP server provides semantic search over your Obsidian vault and makes your recent notes accessible to MCP clients. It enables you to search your notes using natural language queries and interact with your vault contents through the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python with UV package manager
• One or more Obsidian vaults
• A location for the database file

Basic Setup

The server can be run directly using UV:

uv run obsidian-index mcp --vault <VAULT_PATH> --database <DATABASE_PATH> --reindex --watch

Key parameters:

• --vault: Path to your Obsidian vault (can be specified multiple times for multiple vaults)
• --database: Where to store the search index
• --reindex: Rebuild the search index (recommended for each run currently)
• --watch: Automatically update the index when vault contents change

Claude Desktop Integration

MacOS Configuration

To integrate with Claude Desktop on MacOS, edit the configuration file:

# Open the config file
nano ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Windows Configuration

For Windows users, edit:

# Config file location
%APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Configuration Options

For an unpublished development version, add to your configuration:

"mcpServers": {
  "obsidian-index": {
    "command": "uv",
    "args": [
      "--directory",
      "<PATH_TO_PROJECT>",
      "run",
      "obsidian-index",
      "--database",
      "<PATH_TO_DATABASE>",
      "--vault",
      "<PATH_TO_VAULT>",
      "--reindex",
      "--watch"
    ]
  }
}

For the published version:

"mcpServers": {
  "obsidian-index": {
    "command": "uvx",
    "args": [
      "obsidian-index",
      "--database",
      "<PATH_TO_DATABASE>",
      "--vault",
      "<PATH_TO_VAULT>",
      "--reindex",
      "--watch"
    ]
  }
}

Usage

Searching Your Notes

The server provides the search-notes tool for semantic search. When using with Claude, you can:

1. Ask Claude to search your notes on a specific topic
2. Request Claude to summarize recently modified notes
3. Query for information contained in your Obsidian vault

Note Access

Recently modified notes in your vaults are exposed as resources with:

• URL scheme: obsidian://<VAULT_NAME>/<NOTE_PATH>
• Media type: text/markdown

This allows Claude to read and reference specific notes directly from your vault.

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 "obsidian-index" '{"command":"uvx","args":["obsidian-index","--database","<PATH_TO_DATABASE>","--vault","<PATH_TO_VAULT>","--reindex","--watch"]}'

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": {
        "obsidian-index": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "obsidian-index",
                "--database",
                "<PATH_TO_DATABASE>",
                "--vault",
                "<PATH_TO_VAULT>",
                "--reindex",
                "--watch"
            ]
        }
    }
}

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": {
        "obsidian-index": {
            "command": "uvx",
            "args": [
                "obsidian-index",
                "--database",
                "<PATH_TO_DATABASE>",
                "--vault",
                "<PATH_TO_VAULT>",
                "--reindex",
                "--watch"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect