I’ve been having a lot of fun recently using AI CLIs with Obsidian. No plugins necessary because it’s just a directory tree of markdown files.
mihaelm 4 hours ago [-]
I love that CLIs are getting a second wind.
manmal 4 hours ago [-]
I've been using iCloud to sync Obsidian, and have consistently run into the problem that iCloud file container access needs full disk permissions that I don't want to give the agent (or Ghostty). Does everybody use Obsidian's paid sync instead or what? Or SyncThing?
rafaquintanilha 59 minutes ago [-]
Definitely one of the biggest ROI is to pay for the sync. I regret all years I tried git-based alternatives (it's still useful to have it in git for backup, but not as the main syncing mechanism).
kcrwfrd_ 3 hours ago [-]
I just pay for the sync.
I like that I can have some vaults that sync to both my personal and work laptops and other vaults that only sync to one or the other.
It’s awfully convenient without any vendor lock in since I can just take my plain markdown files and leave anytime.
vergessenmir 3 hours ago [-]
Just pay for the sync. I used to juggle with git, rsync, inotify etc and other tools
Its one of the few subscriptions where it actually feels like money well spent
hombre_fatal 3 hours ago [-]
I was using SyncThing, and it worked, but any time you have an Obsidian vault open on two devices, or shortly after another, you're always thinking about if you're going to have to clean up a bunch of sync conflict files later. And that mental overhead is not worth saving $4/mo.
The conflicts are never hard: it's like a git merge conflict where you just take the latest of every conflict block.
typicalrunt 4 hours ago [-]
I used to use SyncThing, then Dropbox, then iCloud. But then I just caved and paid for Obsidian Sync and it is the best money spent aside from Claude. I don't have to tinker with weird settings anymore or deal with sync issues, it just works.
FloatArtifact 4 hours ago [-]
I can't wonder if that's by design to make it hard for a plugin to have it's own sync mechanism. Definitely not proof of this that I know of, but a thought.
wiether 3 hours ago [-]
Obsidian is plain Markdown and JSON files.
There can't be a will from the devs to make it hard to sync.
It's just that unlike git or Dropbox or whatever, that are just generic "syncing" tools, Obsidian Sync has been built to provide the best experience with Obsidian.
FloatArtifact 2 hours ago [-]
I'm talking more about the plugin architecture not about the file format or third-party applications. sync plugins seems to be pretty limited compared to what's offered for a subscription.
20 minutes ago [-]
peterb 4 hours ago [-]
Same
JimmyBiscuit 22 minutes ago [-]
Im just running a Nextcloud on a raspberry pi to sync everything. Works flawlessly for multiple years now.
mk12 41 minutes ago [-]
I use Syncthing (with Synctrain client on iOS) and it works great.
369548684892826 24 minutes ago [-]
protip: You can make synctrain sync with an iOS shortcut, with the shortcut being triggered when Obsidian is opened or closed. This means you're always in sync, even if iOS hasn't allowed synctrain to run in the background.
vulkoingim 52 minutes ago [-]
I used iCloud in the past, but found that syncing between a few devices sometimes left my notes in a weird state - sometimes overwritten, missing, etc. I switched some time ago to https://github.com/remotely-save/remotely-save with backblaze and I periodically sync to a git repo for a second backup. No issues since then.
seabrookmx 2 hours ago [-]
I've had good luck with syncthing. But I only sync between laptop and desktop.. the mobile story with syncthing isn't ideal.
giancarlostoro 3 hours ago [-]
I use both and I prefer their builtin sync, since I also code on Linux.
vorticalbox 2 hours ago [-]
I have been using remotely save and a free bucket from backblaze. It as a s3 compatible api so works using the s3 feature.
yard2010 51 minutes ago [-]
I'm doing the same since this is the only method I found I can let my bot access the files, something I couldn't achieve with Obsidian Sync.. until now!
codybontecou 2 hours ago [-]
I built a one-time purchase solution that might help you.
You can git clone directly to your iOS file system which fixes the Obsidian git plugin issue so you can use the Obsidian git plugin on your computer and mobile devices.
I did run with this setup for a few months (I believe like, 5 months already?) and when it works, it's nice, but 90% of the time it has been extremely painful.
Something breaks, one automatically updates and then it breaks the entire database, SCRAM mode, recovering is painful, and all the time I get warnings, spam and logs, it's anything but seamless.
Which is a real pity, because when it works it feels magical to use within my laptop, my phone and my tablet, all self hosted, but the pain won and so I'm searching for new alternatives.
willis936 3 hours ago [-]
I use this and a self-hosted couchdb. So far it seems to be good, but I haven't spent more than a few hours with it yet. I do have what appears to be a working setup on ios, macos, and linux. Obsidian's large number of plugins and control surfaces is a bit hazardous.
qaq 2 hours ago [-]
github private repo works fine
jadbox 3 hours ago [-]
It's not super useful yet- you can't really view notes in the CLI but you can can trigger features like search.
WNWceAJ9R9Ezc4 3 hours ago [-]
Notes are stored in Markdown files. Why do you need Obsidian CLI to view notes when `cat` will do?
goodmythical 3 hours ago [-]
Okay, so my command line fu is not what it perhaps should be, but if I could use obsidian without the bloated app, I'd be even more in love.
How would I be able to search obsidian links from the command line?
Like, to travel between notes in the app of course I can just click on connecting links or search, but I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to do that in a cli.
Is there some handy way to search the current folder and subfolders for text in a file with regex? Like some kind of >find term for all of my [[term]] entries in markdown files ?
toddmorey 3 hours ago [-]
What is obsidian beyond a pile of markdown files without the app?
chrisweekly 33 minutes ago [-]
ripgrep?
xnyan 2 hours ago [-]
Hackernews is accessed using http. Why do you need a web browser when curl exists?
58 minutes ago [-]
kepano 3 hours ago [-]
You can view notes with Obsidian CLI. See the "read" commands. But also you can do that with your built-in command line tools.
Oh snap! Thanks for that, I can really make good use of this!
4 hours ago [-]
segphault 21 minutes ago [-]
This was my most-wanted Obsidian feature, so I’m thrilled to see this. It’s going to be great for server-side automation and RAG against Obsidian vaults.
kepano 3 hours ago [-]
Oh! I worked on this project. If anyone has questions, I'll do my best to answer them!
Langley 25 minutes ago [-]
Wanted to say thanks. We were literally talking about the lack of a cli sync at work last week and I had moved to Syncthing because of that gap.
Definitely will be looking at the official Obsidian sync plan now.
lukasb 2 hours ago [-]
How are sync conflicts handled in the filesystem? Say I write to a file and another client's edit wins and mine is rejected.
kepano 1 hours ago [-]
The headless Obsidian Sync client works the same way as desktop and mobile clients, see:
- Markdown files: Obsidian Sync merges the changes using Google's diff-match-patch algorithm.
- Other file types: For all other files, including canvases, Obsidian uses a "last modified wins" approach. The most recently modified version replaces earlier versions.
For conflicts in Obsidian settings, such as plugin settings, Obsidian Sync merges the JSON files. It applies keys from the local JSON on top of the remote JSON.
8cvor6j844qw_d6 3 hours ago [-]
Are there plans to support scoped token permissions (specific folders or even specific notes)? I'd love to try setting up something that automatically updates a specific Obsidian note on a state change or cronjob, but I'd want to avoid giving access to the rest of the vault.
also, thanks for the great product, bought the vip catalyst as a show of support.
chrisweekly 27 minutes ago [-]
Related tangent: "Relay" (https://relay.md") lets you sync / share files based on directory (vs. the whole vault). That enables things like "my private vault contains a subdir for work, and my work machine syncs to only that child subdir".
kepano 3 hours ago [-]
Thanks for your support! Sync is end-to-end encrypted so the server doesn't know about specific paths in your vault. You would have to set those permissions at the filesystem level, or with the tool you're using.
surgical_fire 3 hours ago [-]
No question. Just wanted to drop by and say Obsidian is actually pretty cool. An absolute joy to use, and I only wish I learned about it earlier than I did.
Veen 2 hours ago [-]
It would be nice if one could sync dot files in the vault. For example, the .claude or .pi folder containing skills and whatnot.
kepano 2 hours ago [-]
Yes, we're looking into that!
Mountain_Skies 3 hours ago [-]
No questions, just thanks for helping with a great product.
Access on mobile would be main reason. Perhaps that’s an iOS limitation, and Dropbox on Android is just a perfect replacement.
lolive 18 minutes ago [-]
Isn't there a script or a plugin to sync your vault to github, already?
(may be even to sync several vaults, for example to share vaults between colleagues)
bshaughn 10 minutes ago [-]
This tool should finally make it possible to setup a good web interface to my obsidian notes. I have a hacky setup using github as the backend storage system but its slow.
Ive been surprised at how few people are interested in an obsidian browser tool, but its great if I want to read / write notes from a corporate laptop for example.
eric-p7 3 hours ago [-]
I wish I could use Obsidian to edit single markdown files.
If my project has a readme.md I don't want to create an obsidian vault with its configuration files in my project, just to open it.
kepano 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah we'll add that at some point.
It's a bit trickier than it seems because a lot of Obsidian configuration and app functionality is vault-specific. E.g. what theme should be used? What plugins should be available? Does autocomplete for [[links]] or properties do anything? Etc.
toddmorey 3 hours ago [-]
VSCode opens single files outside of projects. What do they do? Personally I wouldn’t mind if it just defaulted to the settings of the last-used vault.
ezfe 2 hours ago [-]
If you don't have a window open, then VSCode opens with no active workspace. There are no workspace settings at all, and there is no file tree. But since VSCode has user level settings, these are what is used, including theming/etc.
If you have a window open, the file is opened to the workspace for that window. You can see this in action because the "Trust" dialog specifically says that you're trying to open untrusted files into a trusted workspace.
random3 2 hours ago [-]
maybe you're overthinking it a little. You could make it of a default setup like the one you use for the sandbox, or some curated fast-loading one
kelvinjps10 5 hours ago [-]
It would be good since I don't use obsidian on my desktop but I do on my phone, so that way I can use it for syncing and then open the documents on Neovim on my desktop
ravila4 2 hours ago [-]
Nice! I rely on Obsidian a lot for syncing knowledge while working with Claude agents, such as storing research and daily logs to catch up on the prior day’s work. It already works quite well with a custom skill that I build, but this may make the workflow smoother.
Can you share more details on your setup with Claude Code ?
system2 42 minutes ago [-]
How does this affect your token/quota usage?
abra0 55 minutes ago [-]
Finally! I had to set up a container with X on my headless server to get a few text files reliably synced, crazy stuff.
rubslopes 2 hours ago [-]
Ha! Just yesterday I set up a git repo to sync my Obsidian vault with my Ubuntu VPS for LLM use. Part of me wishes this had come out one day sooner, though honestly, I've grown to like the git workflow. The deal-breaker is mobile: it just doesn't play nicely there, so I'll keep using native sync for that.
madmod 4 hours ago [-]
For some reason obsidian sync consitently empties random recently opened notes for me. I think it might be some kind of race condition between icloud sync and obsidian sync. File gets touched before obsidian gets to it so the empty note is seen as a new file. That theory doesn't quite hold up though because the same thing happens to me using the android client. Has anyone here had this problem?
_neil 4 hours ago [-]
I had this happen a bunch when I was using iCloud sync on multiple devices. I think it was mostly solved by setting the directory to “keep downloaded” (right click on it in finder and it’s the second option).
That said, I’ve switched one vault to git and have had no issues there.
dispersed 4 hours ago [-]
This is great, but as convenient as Obsidian Sync is, it'll never replace plain Git (for me) until it has unlimited version history:
> The retention period for your version history depends on your Obsidian Sync plan. On the Standard plan, notes are retained for 1 month, while on the Plus plan, they are kept for 12 months. After this period, older versions of your notes are deleted.
jon-wood 4 hours ago [-]
You can use this to sync changes in (near) realtime and then either commit them to git, or use some other mechanism to increase retention.
willis936 2 hours ago [-]
Then you have two solutions to maintain when one would suffice.
qwertox 4 hours ago [-]
It also won't replace Postgres, because that is also a different thing.
Yes, but just because it has version history doesn't mean it is closer to git than to Postgres. You can also do versioning in Postgres. You can even search more easily in the history.
happytoexplain 4 hours ago [-]
I assume they meant "it will never replace Git for syncing Obsidian".
deniskim 4 hours ago [-]
Nice to see an official headless option. If anyone is looking to do headless syncing specifically to their own Synology NAS, I created an open-source alternative for that here: https://pypi.org/project/obsidian-synology-sync/
mtucker502 4 hours ago [-]
I know this is headless but is there any other reason I should use this over the official Synology drive app?
mcjiggerlog 31 minutes ago [-]
I've been using Synology Drive to sync Obsidian between different machines and my android phone and it works great. I've never seen a need to use the official sync.
kepano 3 hours ago [-]
The official Sync is focused on providing a more integrated experience in the Obsidian app
- Built-in version history
- Cross-platform support, especially on mobile
- Fine-grained control (e.g. different theme/plugins/settings per device)
- Sharing your vaults with other users
tigereyeTO 4 hours ago [-]
Synology Drive is a file and folder syncing system.
Obsidian is a note and wiki syncing system.
You should use an obsidian syncing system if you want to sync notes and wikis.
You should use a file syncing system if you want to sync files.
fwn 3 hours ago [-]
This reply does not address parents question at all.
A key feature of Obsidian is that it stores your notes in an open folder structure on your file system.
A very valid question is whether there are benefits to using a special note sync application rather than a standard file system sync application, and if so, what those benefits are.
theptip 5 hours ago [-]
Why would you use this over plain git in a CI pipeline? Presumably you need your knowledge graph versioned?
TheDong 4 hours ago [-]
iOS makes it painful to use third-party sync protocols and servers, like syncthing can't run in the background, a git sync service can't run in the background, only iCloud gets to run in the background.... and whatever sync protocol the app itself has blessed so it can run immediately on opening the app.
As such, on iOS the native sync is the only one that works cleanly and seamlessly, and so you're incentivized to pay for it.
There was a little while, when dropbox was big, where it seemed like the future of computing would be "your data is in the cloud, and every app you use can share that data, and those two things are independent integrated through some common filesystem layer".
And then it ended up that no, your data's in a cloud-per-service, where your emails live in googles cloud, your documents in microsoft 365's cloud, your images in "adobe creative cloud"'s cloud, your photos in Apple's cloud, your passwords in 1Password's cloud, and your knowledgebase in Obsidian's cloud.
The dream of the filesystem API being able to expand to clouds, of being able to choose dropbox or google or apple as the owner of your data, and other applications seamlessly integrating with any of them, it died with apple making it impossible to offer any sort of generic filesystem API or even background sync.
And so, that's why you'd use obsidian sync over git, because you're cursed with using a phone.
Unless you're saying "why not pay for obsidian sync, but then sync it into a git repo in CI and commit there to see the diffs", not "why not use git as the underlying sync protocol", in which case ignore everything I wrote, you totally could do that.
theptip 4 hours ago [-]
Gotcha, thanks. I just use git but don’t sync to my iPhone, this helps give context on the value prop there.
boomskats 5 hours ago [-]
If you have automation that dumps things int your vault, that you built with their new CLI (which lets you create/tag docs etc. without running the full electron app), I guess this lets you sync those changes and propagate them to all of your obsidian sync clients also without having to open aforementioned full electron app.
wiether 4 hours ago [-]
To enjoy the native ease of use and security of Obsidian Sync as a human user on your devices; while being able to automate things on a server.
articsputnik 5 hours ago [-]
Quoting[1] kepano (CEO of Obsidian) - Why you might use Obsidian Sync headless:
- Automate remote backups
- Automate publishing a website
- Give agentic tools access to a vault without access to your full computer
- Sync a shared team vault to a server that feeds other tools
- Run scheduled automations e.g. aggregate daily notes into weekly summaries, auto-tag, etc
...all while having the speed, privacy, customizability, end-to-end encryption of Obsidian Sync.
Does the knowledge graph have a function other than to show off how big your vault is?
kid64 3 hours ago [-]
Only in 2nd-brain mythology, which holds that you'll discover connections between your notes that you didn't realize was there. I think it started as eye candy to confuse prospective users considering Roam Notes. They later did something similar with their "Canvas" feature. So, these are features you get with their lack of coherent vision, rather than basic usability and a safe plugin ecosystem, neither of which Obsidian plans to deliver..
breakyerself 5 hours ago [-]
I just use Dropbox with dropsync on my phone. I never use the knowledge graph anyway
RyanShook 2 hours ago [-]
What’s the best way to sync Obsidian without upgrading to their paid tier?
Interesting...I've been thinking for a while that doing instructions and logs through my obsidian notes would be really helpful and a great way to do more agentic work. I've paid for obsidian sync as a way to support their team for the last 3 years, but color me impressed that there are some more tangible benefits to it!
desireco42 4 hours ago [-]
This is huge. I built SidianSidekicks and it is based on git because we don't want to lose your notes and thoughts, but convenience of Obsidan Sync are something that makes everything easy. I get this is in beta, and we will stick to git, but love what they are doing and looking forward to it.
Essentially Sync while you can emulate it on desktop, for mobile it is not good experience without Sync. And we want to have and record our thoughts with us all the time.
sciencesama 3 hours ago [-]
what does this mean ? can i self host stuff ?
abnry 4 hours ago [-]
Fantastic! Now I don't need to run it in a headless xorg session.
bdhcuidbebe 5 hours ago [-]
[dead]
pdntspa 4 hours ago [-]
Now make Dropbox sync work with iPhone
system2 39 minutes ago [-]
That will never happen; their only money-making method is to limit the iOS app to sell their cloud. Otherwise, the desktop is already free with your own vault folder.
They are trying their hardest to prevent users from using Google Drive or other services natively. While it is just a small option to add, it will make everyone drop their $4 cloud subscription.
kepano 22 minutes ago [-]
If that were true Obsidian would not allow third-party sync plugins in the official directory, and wouldn't mention third-party options in the official docs:
https://help.obsidian.md/cli
I’ve been having a lot of fun recently using AI CLIs with Obsidian. No plugins necessary because it’s just a directory tree of markdown files.
I like that I can have some vaults that sync to both my personal and work laptops and other vaults that only sync to one or the other.
It’s awfully convenient without any vendor lock in since I can just take my plain markdown files and leave anytime.
Its one of the few subscriptions where it actually feels like money well spent
The conflicts are never hard: it's like a git merge conflict where you just take the latest of every conflict block.
There can't be a will from the devs to make it hard to sync.
It's just that unlike git or Dropbox or whatever, that are just generic "syncing" tools, Obsidian Sync has been built to provide the best experience with Obsidian.
- https://isolated.tech/apps/syncmd
- https://isolated.tech/apps/syncmd/blog/obsidian-git-ios-setu...
You can git clone directly to your iOS file system which fixes the Obsidian git plugin issue so you can use the Obsidian git plugin on your computer and mobile devices.
Something breaks, one automatically updates and then it breaks the entire database, SCRAM mode, recovering is painful, and all the time I get warnings, spam and logs, it's anything but seamless.
Which is a real pity, because when it works it feels magical to use within my laptop, my phone and my tablet, all self hosted, but the pain won and so I'm searching for new alternatives.
How would I be able to search obsidian links from the command line?
Like, to travel between notes in the app of course I can just click on connecting links or search, but I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to do that in a cli.
Is there some handy way to search the current folder and subfolders for text in a file with regex? Like some kind of >find term for all of my [[term]] entries in markdown files ?
https://help.obsidian.md/cli
Definitely will be looking at the official Obsidian sync plan now.
https://help.obsidian.md/sync/troubleshoot
- Markdown files: Obsidian Sync merges the changes using Google's diff-match-patch algorithm.
- Other file types: For all other files, including canvases, Obsidian uses a "last modified wins" approach. The most recently modified version replaces earlier versions.
For conflicts in Obsidian settings, such as plugin settings, Obsidian Sync merges the JSON files. It applies keys from the local JSON on top of the remote JSON.
also, thanks for the great product, bought the vip catalyst as a show of support.
And generally help the continued development of Obsidian so we can stay 100% user-supported.
https://stephango.com/vcware
Ive been surprised at how few people are interested in an obsidian browser tool, but its great if I want to read / write notes from a corporate laptop for example.
If my project has a readme.md I don't want to create an obsidian vault with its configuration files in my project, just to open it.
It's a bit trickier than it seems because a lot of Obsidian configuration and app functionality is vault-specific. E.g. what theme should be used? What plugins should be available? Does autocomplete for [[links]] or properties do anything? Etc.
If you have a window open, the file is opened to the workspace for that window. You can see this in action because the "Trust" dialog specifically says that you're trying to open untrusted files into a trusted workspace.
I also built a cli tool to index embeddings in LanceDB and do semantic search. It helps agents create better internal links between notes. https://github.com/ravila4/obsidian-semantic-search
That said, I’ve switched one vault to git and have had no issues there.
> The retention period for your version history depends on your Obsidian Sync plan. On the Standard plan, notes are retained for 1 month, while on the Plus plan, they are kept for 12 months. After this period, older versions of your notes are deleted.
- Built-in version history
- Cross-platform support, especially on mobile
- Fine-grained control (e.g. different theme/plugins/settings per device)
- Sharing your vaults with other users
Obsidian is a note and wiki syncing system.
You should use an obsidian syncing system if you want to sync notes and wikis. You should use a file syncing system if you want to sync files.
A key feature of Obsidian is that it stores your notes in an open folder structure on your file system.
A very valid question is whether there are benefits to using a special note sync application rather than a standard file system sync application, and if so, what those benefits are.
As such, on iOS the native sync is the only one that works cleanly and seamlessly, and so you're incentivized to pay for it.
There was a little while, when dropbox was big, where it seemed like the future of computing would be "your data is in the cloud, and every app you use can share that data, and those two things are independent integrated through some common filesystem layer".
And then it ended up that no, your data's in a cloud-per-service, where your emails live in googles cloud, your documents in microsoft 365's cloud, your images in "adobe creative cloud"'s cloud, your photos in Apple's cloud, your passwords in 1Password's cloud, and your knowledgebase in Obsidian's cloud.
The dream of the filesystem API being able to expand to clouds, of being able to choose dropbox or google or apple as the owner of your data, and other applications seamlessly integrating with any of them, it died with apple making it impossible to offer any sort of generic filesystem API or even background sync.
And so, that's why you'd use obsidian sync over git, because you're cursed with using a phone.
Unless you're saying "why not pay for obsidian sync, but then sync it into a git repo in CI and commit there to see the diffs", not "why not use git as the underlying sync protocol", in which case ignore everything I wrote, you totally could do that.
- Automate remote backups
- Automate publishing a website
- Give agentic tools access to a vault without access to your full computer
- Sync a shared team vault to a server that feeds other tools
- Run scheduled automations e.g. aggregate daily notes into weekly summaries, auto-tag, etc
...all while having the speed, privacy, customizability, end-to-end encryption of Obsidian Sync.
[1]: https://x.com/kepano/status/2027485552451432936
It does not work well for sharing to a mobile env but works great for desktop.
I no longer use Obsidian, so not sure what’s the best option for e.g. Linux <-> iOS sync except their service.
Essentially Sync while you can emulate it on desktop, for mobile it is not good experience without Sync. And we want to have and record our thoughts with us all the time.
They are trying their hardest to prevent users from using Google Drive or other services natively. While it is just a small option to add, it will make everyone drop their $4 cloud subscription.
https://help.obsidian.md/sync-notes
The goal for Obsidian Sync is to be the best option, not the only option.