4 ms·

I don't understand how Obsidian, a collection of markdown files, isn't already AI friendly. It's hard for me to imagine a more AI-friendly but still usable way

by culi 4mo ago

I don't understand how Obsidian, a collection of markdown files, isn't already AI friendly. It's hard for me to imagine a more AI-friendly but still usable way to organize your notes.

engomez 4mo ago
What we did to go "beyond" is build in skills and an MCP server into the app, and auto-install those into e.g. Claude, Codex, and Cursor formats. Also added a web viewer so that e.g. Claude Desktop can open up the editor directly within it's embedded web viewer.
- coldbrewed 4mo ago
  Why not build skills and an MCP for markdown or obsidian? I'm using both at present and it's fine, bit would like to understand the differentiating factor here.
  - engomez 4mo ago
    Example of the functionality that's OK specific: we made it so that e.g. Claude Desktop (or Codex, Cursor) can open the OpenKnowledge web viewer within their own embedded web viewers, to make for better side-by-side editing. Since Obsidian is closed source, we wouldn't be able to make that work. Making the skills/MCP specific to OpenKnowledge allows us to optimize experiences like that.
- rnxrx 4mo ago
  There is at least one MCP server in Obsidian's community plugins, plus the REST API access capability which is already addressed in several open source MCP plugins. I use Obsidian as a persistent context store and knowledge graph (..loosely defined, i.e. link/back-link) for both Claude Code and Hermes, while also using it to generate live Wiki pages for working documentation. The native replication and the Git integrations work well keeping it all synchronized across multiple harnesses, as well. I use the native MCP server mentioned above, plus just letting the agent work with the markdown files directly. That said, having built out all of this manually I'm excited to try out something that addresses much of this out of the box. I'd also be curious about the integration with Hermes/OpenClaw/etc.
  - engomez 4mo ago
    Right on. We did a lot of the same and then had to deal with coaching everyone on the team how to do also set it up. Large inspiration for OpenKnowledge was providing these flows out of the box. We'll prioritize Hermes/OpenClaw guides next. Feel free to drop me any feedback as you try it out - @nickgomez on X.
    - blharr 4mo ago
      What was complicated about the setup? Its a plug-ins folder... add it in and boom you are ready to go
      - engomez 4mo ago
        Keeping the MCPs/skills cross-compatible across the different harnesses, and also getting non-eng folks familiar with git.
- culi 4mo ago
  Don't take this the wrong way, but couldn't this have been a plugin?
  - engomez 4mo ago
    We wanted to make our own editor experience, allows us to do things like proper WYSWIG editing (Notion-like editor). MCP/AI integrations were one piece.
  - NamlchakKhandro 4mo ago
    they can't make money out of that. don't be silly lmao.
outside1234 4mo ago
This. I just open the Obsidian folder (aka "vault") in VS Code and BOOM, it is AI friendly. I just hack on the .md files like I would code with Copilot.
- engomez 4mo ago
  Same flow I had. We did a few things to make the flow easier, like making it easy for Claude Desktop to open the OpenKnowledge web viewer within its own web view. Also exposing things like vector search, etc. Our goal was you wouldn't need a separate IDE and to work well with the coding agent desktop apps. But alas -- markdown files on your local machine is indeed the way for being AI friendly.
- tomComb 4mo ago
  But there’s no good WYSIWIG markdown editor extension for VS code.
  - culi 4mo ago
    Well there's quite a few options. The most popular I think is also open source (Markdown for Humans). Not sure what disqualifies it as "good" to you
    - engomez 4mo ago
      Our bar was "Notion-grade", i.e. drag and drop blocks, slash commands, select to highlight/bold, etc. I don't think I'd seen an extension that does that. It was a technically very hard problem, rich text editors usually use a lossy intermediary format (e.g. prosemirror).
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]

by culi 4mo ago

I don't understand how Obsidian, a collection of markdown files, isn't already AI friendly. It's hard for me to imagine a more AI-friendly but still usable way to organize your notes.

engomez 4mo ago

What we did to go "beyond" is build in skills and an MCP server into the app, and auto-install those into e.g. Claude, Codex, and Cursor formats. Also added a web viewer so that e.g. Claude Desktop can open up the editor directly within it's embedded web viewer.

coldbrewed 4mo ago
Why not build skills and an MCP for markdown or obsidian? I'm using both at present and it's fine, bit would like to understand the differentiating factor here.
- engomez 4mo ago
  Example of the functionality that's OK specific: we made it so that e.g. Claude Desktop (or Codex, Cursor) can open the OpenKnowledge web viewer within their own embedded web viewers, to make for better side-by-side editing. Since Obsidian is closed source, we wouldn't be able to make that work. Making the skills/MCP specific to OpenKnowledge allows us to optimize experiences like that.
rnxrx 4mo ago
There is at least one MCP server in Obsidian's community plugins, plus the REST API access capability which is already addressed in several open source MCP plugins. I use Obsidian as a persistent context store and knowledge graph (..loosely defined, i.e. link/back-link) for both Claude Code and Hermes, while also using it to generate live Wiki pages for working documentation. The native replication and the Git integrations work well keeping it all synchronized across multiple harnesses, as well. I use the native MCP server mentioned above, plus just letting the agent work with the markdown files directly. That said, having built out all of this manually I'm excited to try out something that addresses much of this out of the box. I'd also be curious about the integration with Hermes/OpenClaw/etc.
- engomez 4mo ago
  Right on. We did a lot of the same and then had to deal with coaching everyone on the team how to do also set it up. Large inspiration for OpenKnowledge was providing these flows out of the box. We'll prioritize Hermes/OpenClaw guides next. Feel free to drop me any feedback as you try it out - @nickgomez on X.
  - blharr 4mo ago
    What was complicated about the setup? Its a plug-ins folder... add it in and boom you are ready to go
    - engomez 4mo ago
      Keeping the MCPs/skills cross-compatible across the different harnesses, and also getting non-eng folks familiar with git.
culi 4mo ago
Don't take this the wrong way, but couldn't this have been a plugin?
- engomez 4mo ago
  We wanted to make our own editor experience, allows us to do things like proper WYSWIG editing (Notion-like editor). MCP/AI integrations were one piece.
- NamlchakKhandro 4mo ago
  they can't make money out of that. don't be silly lmao.

outside1234 4mo ago

This. I just open the Obsidian folder (aka "vault") in VS Code and BOOM, it is AI friendly. I just hack on the .md files like I would code with Copilot.

engomez 4mo ago
Same flow I had. We did a few things to make the flow easier, like making it easy for Claude Desktop to open the OpenKnowledge web viewer within its own web view. Also exposing things like vector search, etc. Our goal was you wouldn't need a separate IDE and to work well with the coding agent desktop apps. But alas -- markdown files on your local machine is indeed the way for being AI friendly.
tomComb 4mo ago
But there’s no good WYSIWIG markdown editor extension for VS code.
- culi 4mo ago
  Well there's quite a few options. The most popular I think is also open source (Markdown for Humans). Not sure what disqualifies it as "good" to you
  - engomez 4mo ago
    Our bar was "Notion-grade", i.e. drag and drop blocks, slash commands, select to highlight/bold, etc. I don't think I'd seen an extension that does that. It was a technically very hard problem, rich text editors usually use a lossy intermediary format (e.g. prosemirror).
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]