Obsidian MCP Setup Tutorial for Claude Desktop

Chat with your notes.

I’ll show you how to set up Obsidian MCP and demo how to use it.

If you’re an obsidian user then you’ll love this.

Check out the video on YouTube

Course Update: MCP

I added an MCP section to my AI Engineer Roadmap course.

https://zazencodes.com/courses/ai-engineer-roadmap/ai-engineering-concepts/mcp

It’s hands-on and will quickly get you up to speed with MCP from a developer perspective.

Topics from this week’s video

• Setting up Claude Desktop with Obsidian MCP

  • Overview of MCP server integration with Claude Desktop

  • Free PDF guide available via email newsletter signup

  • Chosen MCP server (cp-obsidian) with strong GitHub community support

  • Interaction via Obsidian’s local REST API

• Configuration Steps

  • Installation of the Obsidian REST API community plugin

    • Search for plugin by Adam Coton

    • Enable it and retrieve API key from settings

  • Editing Claude Desktop’s configuration

    • Insert valid JSON configuration with MCP settings

    • Paste the retrieved Obsidian API key

• Resolving Configuration Errors

  • Initial error due to missing uvx command

  • How to properly install uv which includes uvx

    • Supports macOS, Linux, and Windows

  • Workaround: manually specifying full uvx path in config

• Successful Integration and Testing

  • Claude Desktop correctly loads and accesses MCP server

  • Verified by UI indicator and functional integration

• Practical Demonstration

  • Listing contents of Obsidian vault via MCP server

    • Claude requests directories and lists files

    • Responses are JSON arrays of note folder names

  • Creating and appending to a new index file

    • File creation and content append handled via API calls

    • Approve requests to enable seamless file modification

• Querying the Vault

  • Example: “Show me notes about sending an email with Python”

    • Uses obsidian_simple_search tool from MCP server

    • Returns matching file path and preview of file content

  • Retrieval of complete file contents

    • Content is injected directly into Claude’s context for processing

• Limitations Encountered

  • Large notes lead to context window overflow

    • Claude 4 Sonnet quickly hits token limit

    • Attempts to limit context with context_length fail

• Alternatives and Recommendations

  • Option 1: Use Cursor app with MCP and API model support

  • Option 2: Await OpenAI Desktop MCP support

  • Option 3: Use MCP Host

    • Free and supports local and OpenAI models

    • Compatible with GPT-4o mini

    • Demo available in linked follow-up video

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