obsidian-ai-miniserver 0.4.2

Expose your Obsidian vault via REST API and streamable HTTP MCP server for AI tool access

obsidian-ai-miniserver

A complete Obsidian tool in ~326 tokens! (see tool_prompt.md)

Makes one or more Obsidian vaults accessible via REST API (OpenAPI), streamable HTTP MCP server, and Web UI. Enables AI to find, read, and edit text notes across vaults. Supports multiple users with token-based auth and per-vault path-level access control.

Browse the API on Redocly or Swagger.

What's good about it

Maximum Control

• Works for any form of text files in vault — markdown, json, etc
• AI can do advanced regex searches
• Limits, Paging, Sort on all requests — AI can adjust snippet sizes on search results
• Every call is a batch — multiple operations in one round-trip by default saves time and tokens
• Create multiple users with their own keys, different read/write permissions and per-vault folder access
• Multi-vault: serve multiple Obsidian vaults from one server — AI can search and move files across vaults

Maximum Flexibility

• Access anywhere — WebUI for human management, MCP http streaming for agents, OpenAPI for agents and web-app integrations
• Run anywhere — Locally on PC with Obsidian app, headless in container with multi-vault sync, with Obsidian Sync or just from folder
• Compatibility hacks pre-applied — Agent harness dropping rich parameter schemas? We collapse the schema into the function docstring and accept a plain JSON string

Maximum Token Efficiency

• Ruthless minimalism: single CLI command, single tool interface for AI, AI can perform all admin work
• Less tokens = faster and cheaper
• The entire tool schema uses ~326 tokens thanks to minimized docstrings, zero duplication or boilerplate — see tool_prompt.md
• ~50% token savings on MCP tokens after trimming FastMCP generated schemas with no information loss
• Responses with repeated keys (search results, file lists) are flattened into text formats for savings on every result — e.g. path | modified_at | length and path:line | match | context

Quick start

pip install obsidian-ai-miniserver
obs_ai_ms start --vault work:/path/to/work --vault personal:/path/to/personal

This starts the API, MCP, and Web UI servers. Connect your AI to the MCP endpoint or the REST API. Visit http://127.0.0.1:8747/web for the admin interface.

Options

Option	Env Var	Default	Description
--vault name:path	—	(none)	Vault to register (repeatable). e.g. --vault work:/path/to/work
--admin-token	OBS_AI_MS_ADMIN_TOKEN	(auto-generated)	Auth token for the admin user
--port	OBS_AI_MS_PORT	8747	Server port
--host	OBS_AI_MS_HOST	127.0.0.1	Host to bind to. Use 0.0.0.0 to allow remote access
--fqdn	OBS_AI_MS_FQDN	(none)	Public URL for self-linking
--base-path	OBS_AI_MS_BASE_PATH	(none)	Base path when behind a reverse proxy
--config	OBS_AI_MS_CONFIG	(platform dir)	Path to config file

Persistence

Config is stored in the platform application support directory — not inside any vault:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian_ai_miniserver/config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/obsidian_ai_miniserver/config.json

Contains vaults, users, and server settings. Override the location with --config or OBS_AI_MS_CONFIG.

Headless deployment

Run headless in a Docker container with Obsidian Headless — no desktop app needed. The docker-compose.yaml is fully self-contained: it installs everything from the internet at startup.

You can paste it directly into a container platform like Coolify — just set the environment variables:

Env Var	Description
OBSIDIAN_USERNAME	Your Obsidian account email
OBSIDIAN_PASSWORD	Your Obsidian account password
OBSIDIAN_VAULTNAME	Name of your remote vault (synced as "default")
OBSIDIAN_VAULTS	Optional comma-separated name=vaultname pairs for multi-vault sync
OBS_AI_MS_ADMIN_TOKEN	Admin auth token
OBS_AI_MS_HOST	Host to bind to (default 0.0.0.0)
OBS_AI_MS_PORT	Server port (default 8747)
OBS_AI_MS_FQDN	Public URL for self-linking
OBS_AI_MS_BASE_PATH	Base path when behind a reverse proxy

Or via CLI:

OBSIDIAN_USERNAME=[e-mail] OBSIDIAN_PASSWORD=secret OBSIDIAN_VAULTNAME="My Vault" docker compose up

API reference

All requests go to POST /api/obsidian as a JSON array of request objects, each with a kind field that discriminates the request type. Available kinds:

• get_vault_info — your vaults, daily notes folders, and user info
• list_files — list files and folders at a path across vaults
• read_text — read a note's text
• write_text — overwrite a note
• append_text — append to a note
• replace_text — find and replace text in a note
• move_file — move, copy, or delete a file (including cross-vault)
• search_files — regex search across notes and text files with context snippets
• list_users / upsert_user — admin user management
• upsert_vault — admin vault management