EvidenceWeave

Add contextual PDF previews and editable relationship labels to Obsidian's native Graph view.

EvidenceWeave is a lightweight desktop plugin. It does not replace Obsidian's force-directed graph or create a second graph page.

Features

• Hover a paper node: see Obsidian's normal highlighted neighbors, short directional labels on documented relationships, and a PDF preview if a source exists.
• Click to lock focus; click empty canvas to unlock. Cmd/Ctrl-click retains native open-note behavior.
• Drag the PDF window by its title bar and resize from any corner. PDF panel and labels move and scale with the graph; wheel scrolling inside a PDF turns pages.
• Click a relation label to edit. Enter saves to the original Markdown note (Esc cancels; Chinese/other IME composition supported). Editing a short label never overwrites the original long scholarly evidence and marks that label for review.
• Ordinary note metadata updates do not unnecessarily reload a PDF being read. Where publisher embeds fail, ↗ opens the original file in a browser; ↻ optionally retries a one-time complete in-memory PDF fetch.
• Never creates phantom edges or claims that a wikilink proves a scientific relationship.

Install and try

Once listed in Obsidian, enable EvidenceWeave from Community plugins, then open Obsidian's built-in Graph view. For manual installation, copy main.js, manifest.json, styles.css from the matching GitHub Release into .obsidian/plugins/evidence-weave/.

PDF sources: YAML pdf_path / pdf / pdf_url, a local Markdown PDF embed such as ![[paper.pdf]], or a direct PDF link in a recognized paper note. If no PDF exists, no popup appears.

The optional research folder and overview note settings are blank by default (entire Vault; no special overview). Users with existing custom settings keep them when updating. A legacy INSES-overview importer is optional, not required.

Short relation records

Create a Markdown relation note with YAML:

---
node_type: relation
relation_id: R-paper-a-b
source: Papers/Paper A.md
target: Papers/Paper B.md
relation_type: compares
label_from_source: "Compares its retrieval strategy with B"
label_from_target: "Serves as a retrieval comparison for A"
label_review_status: unverified
summary_from_source: "Detailed interpretation with the citation and caveats."
summary_from_target: "Detailed explanation from B's viewpoint."
review_status: unverified
---

A real wikilink must connect both paper notes for Obsidian's native Graph view to draw the edge. EvidenceWeave adds labels to those existing edges only. Detailed evidence and short labels are separate. See relationship schema.

Privacy, network use and safety

• Local-first. Reads Markdown and metadata from the current Vault. No account, external sync service, MCP endpoint, analytics, telemetry, ads, self-updating code or data uploads to the maintainer.
• Remote PDF preview connects directly to the host in the note's PDF link (journal, university, proceedings or preprint server). The server may observe your IP and request headers. If you press ↻, Obsidian's requestUrl fetches the complete linked PDF once into memory; the 30 MB limit is checked after the response arrives (not a pre-download bandwidth cap), and the temporary in-memory object is released on closing/switching files. Some publishers disable embedded previews.
• Writing is explicit. Only pressing Enter after editing a relation label triggers a guarded vault.process update inside the current Vault. Any subsequent sync is performed by your existing, separate Obsidian sync setup, not by this plugin.
• Does not access files outside the Vault. External browser opening happens only when you click ↗.

Compatibility and known limitations

Desktop Obsidian 1.14.4+. The native Graph renderer uses undocumented internal APIs: future Obsidian versions can break that integration. Unsupported internal structures leave the native view alone. The built-in Chromium PDF renderer and external publishers may prevent later pages loading; click ↗ to read the original. Relation labels do not replace evidence verification.

Development

Node.js 18+; no runtime npm dependencies. main.js is generated from src/ using npm run build; npm run check builds and runs tests. Source-build parity and release-asset validation run in CI. The manual release workflow creates the exact-version tag and Release assets.

License and attribution

MIT. Independent implementation inspired by the public approaches of Graph Edge Notes and Graph Highlight Lock. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Obsidian.

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中文简介

EvidenceWeave 只增强 Obsidian 原生关系图谱，不新建图谱页面。悬停论文节点展示关联关系及 PDF（无 PDF 不显示），点击节点锁定、点击空白处解除。PDF 可以拖动标题栏移动、拖动四角调整大小，并随图谱一起平移和缩放；在 PDF 内滚动可翻页。关系短句点击后可编辑并按 Enter 保存到 Markdown，不会覆盖详细证据。

默认扫描整个 Vault；可设置研究文件夹。支持笔记中 pdf_path、pdf_url、![[paper.pdf]] 等 PDF 来源。只有原生双链与明确的关系记录才能产生语义标签，不会凭空猜测学术关系。

**网络和隐私：**在线 PDF 预览会直接连接 PDF 来源网站，网站可能看到访问 IP。↻ 会按需将 PDF 暂存在内存中，不上传插件开发者服务器。只有你修改短句并按 Enter 后才会写入当前 Vault。插件不包含遥测和 Cloud/MCP 同步。