🌿 Git History for Obsidian

Version control for your vault, with an intuitive interface and no terminal required.

Every note you edit is tracked. You can look back at what changed and when, undo a change you regret, and keep a backup copy somewhere safe. The plugin shows all of it as a visual timeline inside Obsidian — point, click, done.

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🌱 New to Git? Start here

Git is a tool that remembers every version of every file. Three ideas cover almost everything you will do:

Term	What it means for your vault
📸 Commit	A snapshot of your vault at one moment, with a short note about it. Like a save point you can return to.
⬆️ Push	Uploads your snapshots to a backup copy, so they also exist off this computer.
⬇️ Pull	Downloads snapshots you made elsewhere, for example on another computer.

A typical day needs one habit: write what changed, press Commit, press Push. Everything else in this plugin is there for the moment you want to look back.

If your vault is not a Git repository yet, run the Initialize Git repository command from Obsidian's command palette and the plugin sets one up for you.

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What you get

📋 Source control panel

Your changed notes, grouped and ready to commit.

• See at a glance which notes changed, and by how much
• Stage individual notes, whole folders, or everything at once
• Open or close a folder and everything under it in one click, at any depth
• Commit with a message, amend the last one, or commit and push in one step
• Pull, push, fetch and stash from the toolbar, with progress while they run
• Switch or create branches
• Refreshes itself when you edit notes or come back to the window

🌳 Commit graph

The history of your vault as a timeline.

• Every commit with its author, date, and how much changed
• Branches and merges drawn as coloured lanes
• Click a commit to expand it and see what it contained
• Read a commit's files as a folder tree or a flat list, with the same folding controls as the changes list
• Search by message, author, or commit ID

A compact version lives in the sidebar, so you can glance at recent commits without leaving what you were doing.

🕰️ File history

Pick any note and see only the commits that touched it — including the ones from before you renamed it. Available from the command palette and from the right-click menu in the source control panel.

🔍 Diff viewer

See exactly what changed in a note: old and new side by side, or as one annotated text. You can stage or undo a single block of changes instead of the whole file.

💻 Terminal — Alpha

Alpha. This one is early and I am still working on it. I am shipping it so you can try it — please tell me what breaks. Expect rough edges, and do not rely on it for anything you cannot redo by hand.

A shell inside Obsidian, opened in a panel below your note, starting in your vault's folder.

• Opens from the terminal ribbon icon, the commit graph toolbar, or the Open terminal command
• Starts in your vault's folder, so git and everything else act on your notes
• Uses your own login shell, with your prompt, colours, and aliases
• Resizes with the panel
• Several sessions side by side, listed as icons along the edge of the panel
• Give each session its own icon and colour from its right-click menu, so a row of identical shell icons stays readable. The icons are grouped by what the session is for — shells and pipelines, mail and meetings, documents and spreadsheets, presenting and recording, the business and the trip
• Drag the icons to reorder the sessions
• A startup script in the settings is loaded into every session, in the place your own .zshrc would put it — aliases, environment variables and functions are there before the first prompt
• Desktop only, like the rest of the plugin

If a shell does not start, the panel says which program it tried to use and what that program printed, with a Try again button next to it. The Check terminal setup command reports the same thing at any time: which search path is in use, which git and which interpreter were found, and what the terminal can do with them.

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🧩 Requirements

• Obsidian 1.7.2 or later
• Git installed on your computer (how to install)
• Desktop only — Git cannot run on mobile

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⌨️ Commands

Available from Obsidian's command palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P).

Command	What it does
Open source control	Opens the sidebar panel
Open Git graph	Opens the full history timeline
Commit	Jumps to the panel to write a commit
Push	Uploads your commits
Pull	Downloads commits made elsewhere
Fetch	Checks for new commits without applying them
Backup: stage all, commit & push	Snapshots and uploads the whole vault in one step
Show file history	Shows the history of the note you have open
Initialize Git repository	Sets up version control for a vault that has none
Set Git identity	Sets the name and email address Git puts on your commits
Open terminal	Opens the shell panel in your vault's folder (Alpha)
Check terminal setup	Reports which programs the terminal found and what it can do with them

⚙️ Settings

Identity

The name and email address Git records on every commit you make. These are not plugin settings: they are read from git config, showing whichever value applies here — your global one, or a value set for this vault, which overrides it.

Setting	What it does
Name	The name recorded as the author of your commits
Email	The address recorded alongside it, and what forges match commits to accounts by

An edit is written for this vault only. Your global config is read, never written: the name every other repository on your computer commits under is not something a vault's settings should change.

Each row carries a badge saying where its value comes from — This vault, Global Git config, or Not set — so an inherited value and one set for these notes are never the same box with nothing to tell them apart. An inherited one also says what an edit will do: give this vault its own value and leave the original alone.

If neither is set anywhere, the plugin offers to set them when it loads, and again if a commit fails for the lack of them. That prompt writes for this vault too. Both are worth having: without them, Git either refuses to commit or invents a name and an address from your computer's user name and hostname — and puts those on your commits, where no Git host can match them to your account.

Remote repository

Where the vault is pushed to and pulled from: its copy on GitHub, GitLab or a server of your own. Like the identity, this is not a plugin setting but what git remote holds in this vault, and editing it runs git.

Every remote is one row: its name, which host it is on, and its address in a field you can edit. Press + to add one — paste the address the host's clone button gives you, and the name is filled in as origin for the first. An address that is not one Git can use is refused with the reason, rather than stored and failing at the first push.

Commits and sync

Setting	Default	What it does
Commit message	(empty)	Message used by the one-step backup. {{date}} becomes today's date
Pull strategy	merge	How downloaded commits are combined with yours
Auto-fetch	off	Check the remote for new commits in the background
Auto-fetch every	300s	How often to check. Greyed out while auto-fetch is off

Changes and diffs

Setting	Default	What it does
Changes layout	tree	Files nested under their folders, or one flat row per file
Compact folders	on	Fold folders holding a single subfolder into one row. Tree layout only
Default diff view	side by side	Two columns side by side, or one annotated text
Only list files Obsidian can open	on	Leave files no Obsidian view can render out of a commit's file list

Advanced

Setting	Default	What it does
Show nested repositories	off	List folders that are repositories of their own. They cannot be committed together with the rest of the vault
Refresh delay	1000ms	How long to wait after an edit before refreshing
Git binary	(auto-detect)	Path to the git the plugin runs. Empty searches the PATH your own shell uses

Terminal

Setting	Default	What it does
Shell	(auto-detect)	Path to the shell the Alpha terminal starts. Empty uses your system default
Python	(auto-detect)	Path to the Python 3 behind the terminal's pseudo-terminal. Empty searches for one
Pseudo-terminal	Automatic	Which bridge gives the shell a real terminal. Automatic takes the first that works
Startup script	(empty)	Shell code run at the start of every session, after your own rc files and before the first prompt
Colour new sessions	off	Hand every session you open the next free colour from the palette

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🔒 What the plugin does on your computer

Obsidian lists what a plugin is capable of, so here is what those capabilities are used for:

• Runs the git command. That is how every action works — it is the same program you would use in a terminal, run inside your vault's folder only.
• Writes to the clipboard. Only when you use "Copy SHA" or "Copy path".
• Starts a shell, if you open the Alpha terminal. Only then, and only the shell you already use, started in your vault's folder. Whatever you type into that panel runs with your own user account, exactly as it would in Terminal or iTerm. Nothing runs there on its own.

Nothing leaves your machine unless you press push, and then only to the backup location you set up yourself.

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License

MIT