Obsidian MCP Server (MarkusMcNugen)

Overview

Obsidian MCP Server by MarkusMcNugen connects MCP-compatible agents directly to a local Obsidian vault, exposing the vault's notes as readable and writable MCP resources alongside a rich set of tools for searching, tagging, and navigating internal links. Agents can read individual notes or entire folders as context, create and update markdown files, perform full-text and tag-based searches across the vault, and inspect or modify wikilink graphs — turning a personal knowledge base (PKM) into live, structured memory for any agent session. The server communicates over stdio transport and integrates with the Obsidian Local REST API plugin, keeping all data local with no cloud dependency. It works best with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Cursor, and pairs naturally with filesystem or memory MCP servers to extend an agent's context management capabilities.

Best for

Best for
Knowledge workers, researchers, and builders who use Obsidian as their primary PKM and want agents to read, write, search, and navigate the vault as structured memory

Use cases

• Pull relevant notes and prior research into an agent session before drafting a document
• Create and file structured meeting notes or research summaries directly from an agent
• Search the vault by tag or keyword to surface prior decisions before starting a new project
• Traverse wikilinks and backlinks to map related concepts during research workflows
• Sync agent-generated content back into the knowledge base with correct tags and links

Notes

What it does

Obsidian MCP Server (MarkusMcNugen) exposes a local Obsidian vault as a full MCP surface — both resources (notes and folders readable as structured context) and tools (actions agents can invoke to read, write, search, and navigate the vault). The core tool set covers read_note and list_notes for retrieving content, create_note and update_note for writing back to the vault, search_vault for full-text and tag-based queries, and get_links / get_backlinks for traversing the wikilink graph. This makes the vault a live, queryable knowledge store rather than a static file directory.

How to deploy

Install the Obsidian Local REST API community plugin inside Obsidian and enable it with an API key. Clone or install the MCP server, set the OBSIDIAN_API_KEY and OBSIDIAN_HOST environment variables, and add the server to your MCP host config (e.g., claude_desktop_config.json under mcpServers). The server runs as a stdio child process spawned by the host — no persistent daemon or Docker container required.

Best practices

Scope the server to a specific vault subfolder (e.g., /projects or /research) rather than the vault root to keep context tight and avoid overwhelming the agent’s context window. Use the search_vault tool with tag filters before loading full note content — retrieve only the notes most relevant to the current task. Pair with the Memory MCP server to let the agent maintain a working scratchpad alongside the persistent vault, and with the Filesystem MCP for broader file operations outside the vault boundary.