Obsidian MCP Server TODO

P0 — Core / Essential

• [x] Expose vault directories and files as MCP Resources
• [x] Tool to read notes
• [x] Tool to create new notes
• [x] Tool to append text to existing notes
• [x] Tool to search & replace text within a note (replaces granular list/task editing)
• [x] Tool to delete notes
• [ ] Tool to move/rename files (without auto-updating references)
• [ ] Tool to search vault by filename
• [ ] Tool to search vault by text content
• [ ] Basic Markdown parsing / AST in Rust
• [ ] YAML/frontmatter parsing in Rust
• [ ] Prevent writes outside the configured vault root
• [ ] Atomic file writes
• [ ] Configurable excluded paths
• [ ] Structured MCP tool outputs
• [ ] Consistent MCP error handling
• [ ] Basic unit tests for every added feature in P0

P1 — Obsidian Semantics & Properties

• [ ] Parse and resolve Obsidian internal links ([[]])
• [ ] Support link aliases ([[note|alias]])
• [ ] Support heading links ([[note#heading]])
• [ ] Support block references ([[note#^block]])
• [ ] Parse Obsidian embeds (![[...]])
• [ ] Find backlinks to a note
• [ ] Find outgoing links from a note
• [ ] Find unresolved/broken internal links
• [ ] Read note properties / frontmatter
• [ ] Update note properties
• [ ] Query notes by property
• [ ] Validate frontmatter against a schema
• [ ] List all tags and usage counts
• [ ] Find notes by tag
• [ ] Correctly distinguish tags in Markdown, YAML, and code blocks

P1 — Safe Mutations

• [ ] Add dry-run mode for mutations
• [ ] Return before/after diffs for edits
• [ ] Add atomic multi-file operations
• [ ] Maximum file-size limits
• [ ] Require explicit confirmation for destructive operations

P2 — Search & Context (LLM Power Tools)

• [ ] Regex search
• [ ] Search within a directory/subtree
• [ ] Search excluding configured directories
• [ ] Tag & Property search
• [ ] Link/backlink search
• [ ] Search surrounding context around matches (return relevant sections)
• [ ] get_note_context tool (Mega-tool returning note contents + frontmatter + backlinks + outgoing links + tags in one payload)
• [ ] Tool to summarize a note’s connections
• [ ] Vault health/diagnostics tool (Find broken links, orphans, empty notes, malformed YAML)

P2 — MCP Resources

• [ ] obsidian://vault
• [ ] obsidian://note/
• [ ] obsidian://backlinks/
• [ ] obsidian://tags/
• [ ] obsidian://recent
• [ ] obsidian://orphans
• [ ] obsidian://broken-links
• [ ] obsidian://daily/today

P3 — Architecture & Infrastructure

• [ ] Build reusable Rust vault engine independent of MCP
• [ ] Keep MCP layer thin over vault primitives
• [ ] Create reusable resolve_link() primitive
• [ ] Create reusable backlinks() primitive
• [ ] Create reusable search() abstraction
• [ ] Create reusable mutation/diff abstraction
• [ ] Add comprehensive unit tests
• [ ] Add integration tests against real Obsidian vaults
• [ ] Add fixture vault containing common Obsidian syntax
• [ ] Benchmark indexing/search performance

P4 — Reach Goals & Advanced Features

• [ ] Detect newly added attachments
• [ ] Recent Screenshot Sorting to appropriate note directories
• [ ] Find notes referencing an attachment
• [ ] Find unused/missing attachments
• [ ] Parse callouts
• [ ] Parse aliases
• [ ] Parse footnotes
• [ ] Parse comments
• [ ] Detect Dataview queries
• [ ] Detect Tasks plugin syntax
• [ ] Detect Templater templates
• [ ] Support daily notes & note templates natively
• [ ] Vault graph mapping (Query incoming/outgoing graph edges)
• [ ] Find connected/isolated notes
• [ ] Find clusters of related notes
• [ ] Export vault graph (JSON, Graphviz/DOT, Mermaid)
• [ ] Watch vault filesystem for changes & incrementally update index
• [ ] MCP prompt for daily note creation
• [ ] MCP prompt for weekly review
• [ ] Allow user-defined prompt templates

Running/Developing

To test against the MCP server, use npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector cargo run --quiet to send messages to the server and receive responses.

To build and run the MCP server, use cargo build and cargo run --quiet.

To connect the MCP server to you local LLM, point the MCP to the local working directory, with command cargo and arguments run and --quiet. Note that --quiet is required, otherwise the LLM will be inundated with logs and it will be unable to properly parse the incoming informatio