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obx

Quick Start

This guide will help you set up obx and start using it with your AI assistant.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • An Obsidian vault (or any folder with markdown files)
  • An MCP-compatible AI client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.)

Setup

Section titled “Setup”

  1. Install obx

    Terminal window
    curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zach-snell/obx/main/install.sh | bash

  2. Find your vault path

    Your Obsidian vault is just a folder. Find the path:

    • macOS: /Users/yourname/Documents/MyVault
    • Linux: /home/yourname/Documents/MyVault
    • Windows: C:\Users\yourname\Documents\MyVault

  3. Configure your MCP client

    Add to your Claude Desktop config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

    {
      "mcpServers": {
        "obsidian": {
          "command": "obx",
          "args": ["mcp", "/path/to/your/vault"]
        }
      }
    }

  4. Restart your AI client

    Close and reopen Claude Desktop (or your MCP client) to load the new server.

  5. Start chatting!

    You can now ask your AI assistant to interact with your vault.

First Commands to Try

Section titled “First Commands to Try”

Once configured, try asking your AI assistant:

Read your vault

Section titled “Read your vault”

“Show me my 10 most recently modified notes”

“What notes do I have in my projects folder?”

Search for content

Section titled “Search for content”

“Search for notes mentioning ‘machine learning’”

“Find all notes tagged with #book-notes”

Create content

Section titled “Create content”

“Create a new daily note for today”

“Add a task to my inbox: Review quarterly goals”

Analyze your vault

Section titled “Analyze your vault”

“Show me statistics about my vault”

“Find orphan notes that aren’t linked anywhere”

Example Conversation

Section titled “Example Conversation”

Here’s a typical interaction:

You: “Create a new project note for ‘Website Redesign’ with status draft and priority high”

Assistant: Uses manage-notes action: “write” and manage-frontmatter action: “set”

Created projects/Website Redesign.md with:

  • Status: draft
  • Priority: high

You: “Add a checklist of tasks for this project”

Assistant: Uses manage-notes action: “append”

Added tasks to the note:

  • Define requirements
  • Create wireframes
  • Design mockups
  • Implement frontend
  • Test and deploy

Next Steps

Section titled “Next Steps”