silmaril 0.2.3

Self-hosted, mobile-first web UI for browsing and editing Obsidian vaults

Silmaril

💎 A self-hosted, mobile-first web UI for browsing and editing Obsidian vaults from any device. Single Python file, zero config. Inspired by notion4ever.

graph LR
    V[("📂 Your Vault")] --- S{{"⚡ silmaril"}}
    S <-->|browse| P["📱 Phone"]
    S <-->|search| D["🖥️ Desktop"]
    S <-->|edit| L["💻 Laptop"]

Your vault stays in one place. You access it from anywhere.

Why?

If your vault lives on a VPS or a desktop machine and you want to access it from your phone or any browser — this is for you. All my attempts to sync vaults across devices (Remotely Save, third-party sync plugins) kept failing with conflicts and silent data loss. Obsidian Sync works, but costs money and requires the app on every device.

Silmaril takes a different approach: your vault stays in one place, you access it from anywhere. Point it at a directory, open a URL — browse, search, edit. It just works.

It renders most of what Obsidian renders: wiki-links, embeds, callouts, KaTeX math, frontmatter properties, cover images, Bases, Iconic plugin icons. It won't replace Obsidian for heavy workflows with lots of plugins or complex Dataview queries, but for reading, quick edits, and staying on top of your notes from a phone — it's a lifesaver.

Features

• Markdown rendering with full Obsidian flavor: [[wiki-links]], ![[embeds]], callouts, highlights, checkboxes
• KaTeX math rendering ($inline$ and $$display$$)
• Obsidian Bases (.base files) with cards, list, and table views
• Iconic plugin support with native icon editing (Lucide + emoji picker)
• Cover images from frontmatter (banner, cover, image)
• Frontmatter badges (status, tags) with color coding
• Full-text search with instant sidebar filtering and content snippets
• Cards / List / Table views for any directory
• Clean URLs — /notes/ideas.md not /view/notes/ideas.md
• Mobile-first responsive design
• Edit and delete notes in the browser (?edit, ?raw)
• Code blocks with copy button
• File tree sidebar with collapsible folders

Installation

pip install silmaril

Then run:

silmaril --vault /path/to/your/vault

Open http://localhost:8000 in your browser.

From source

git clone https://github.com/MerkulovDaniil/silmaril.git
cd silmaril
pip install .
silmaril --vault /path/to/your/vault

Or run directly without installing:

pip install fastapi uvicorn python-frontmatter markdown pyyaml
python app.py --vault /path/to/vault

Configuration

CLI arguments

Argument	Env variable	Default	Description
--vault	VAULT_ROOT	./vault	Path to your Obsidian vault
--host	VAULT_HOST	0.0.0.0	Bind address
--port	VAULT_PORT	8000	Bind port
--title	VAULT_NAME	folder name	App title shown in the sidebar

Config file

Place a silmaril.yml (or silmaril.yaml) in the working directory:

vault: /path/to/vault
host: 0.0.0.0
port: 8000
title: My Vault

theme: Things          # any Obsidian community theme by name
favicon: https://example.com/icon.png
custom_css: "body { font-size: 18px; }"
pinch_zoom: true
readonly: false
hide:
  - "_private/**"
  - "*.tmp"

Priority: CLI args > config file > environment variables > defaults.

Themes

Silmaril supports all 416 Obsidian community themes out of the box. Just set the theme name in your config:

theme: Things

The CSS is fetched from GitHub on first launch and cached locally in ~/.cache/silmaril/themes/.

Some popular themes to try:

Theme	Style
Things	Clean, minimal, Apple-inspired
Obsidian Nord	Nord color palette
Obsidian gruvbox	Retro groove colors
Dracula for Obsidian	Dark purple Dracula
Atom	Atom editor look
Solarized	Ethan Schoonover's palette
80s Neon	Synthwave vibes
Notation	Bear app inspired

Without a theme setting, Silmaril uses Obsidian's default theme colors.

Authentication

No built-in auth. Recommended options:

1. Cloudflare Access / Tunnel — zero-trust, recommended for public hosting
2. Reverse proxy with basic auth — nginx, caddy
3. Run locally — silmaril --host 127.0.0.1

Deployment

systemd

[Unit]
Description=Silmaril
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=silmaril --vault /path/to/vault --port 8000
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Docker

FROM python:3.12-slim
WORKDIR /app
COPY pyproject.toml app.py ./
COPY silmaril/ silmaril/
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir .
EXPOSE 8000
CMD ["silmaril", "--vault", "/vault"]

docker run -v /path/to/vault:/vault -p 8000:8000 silmaril

License

MIT

Credits

Inspired by notion4ever. Built with FastAPI, python-frontmatter, and KaTeX.

Author: Daniil Merkulov