Hybrid Search

Hybrid Search combines BM25 full-text search with semantic vector search across your Obsidian vault.

The plugin provides the Obsidian interface. The obsidian-hybrid-search CLI runs in the background and handles indexing and search.

Hybrid Search works with the desktop version of Obsidian.

Requirements

Install the CLI globally with npm.

npm install -g obsidian-hybrid-search

The CLI must be available in your PATH. You can also set a custom path in the plugin settings.

Installation

Open Hybrid Search in the Obsidian Community plugins directory and select Add to Obsidian.

Usage

Open the search window in either of these ways.

• Select the search icon in the left sidebar.
• Open the command palette and run Hybrid search: Open search.

Results update as you type and include a relevance score.

Hybrid search results with relevance scores

Score	Color	Meaning
>0.8	Green	High relevance
0.5 to 0.8	Orange	Medium relevance
<0.5	Gray	Low relevance

Empty query and similar notes

Leave the query empty to see results based on the current context.

• If a note is open, the plugin shows semantically similar notes.
• If no note is open, it shows recently opened files.

Semantically similar notes

Workbench

The link discovery workbench helps you find useful connections for the current note. It compares graph structure with semantic similarity.

• Best shows the top candidates based on structural and semantic signals.
• Missing Links shows related notes that are not linked yet.
• Bridges shows notes that connect distant parts of the graph.
• Similar shows semantically close notes.
• Links shows existing outgoing and incoming links.
• Diagnostics explains the note's position in the graph.

Each candidate includes scores for cosine similarity, Adamic-Adar, common neighbors, co-citation count, semantic distance, and other signals. You can add links, inspect backlinks, and compare notes from the list. The local graph shows the notes around the current file.

Link discovery workbench

Query syntax

These two queries are equivalent.

hybrid: zettelkasten tag:project limit:20 @rerank

zettelkasten #project @limit:20 @rerank @hybrid

Inline	Postfix	Description
(plain text)	None	Hybrid search (default)
hybrid:	@hybrid / @hyb	Hybrid mode (BM25 + semantic)
semantic: / sem:	@semantic / @sem	Semantic (vector) only
fulltext: / full:	@full	Full-text (BM25) only
title:	@title	Fuzzy title match
None	@sim / @similar	Notes similar to the active note
None	@sim:[[Note]]	Notes similar to a specific note
None	@sim:"path/note.md"	Same, by path
tag: / tag:#tag	#tag	Filter by tag (include)
-tag: / -tag:#tag	-#tag	Filter by tag (exclude)
folder: / path:	None	Limit to a folder (quote names with spaces)
-folder: / -path:	None	Exclude a folder
limit:N	@limit:N / @lim:N	Override result count
threshold:N	@threshold:N / @th:N	Minimum score threshold
None	@rerank	Rerank with a cross-encoder
key:value	None	Filter by frontmatter field
-key:value	None	Exclude by frontmatter field

Hotkeys

Hotkey	Action
Mod+J / Mod+K	Next / previous result
Mod+P	Toggle preview panel
Mod+G	Toggle local graph panel
Mod+O	Open selected in new tab
Mod+Shift+O	Open all results in new tabs
Alt+Enter	Insert wiki link to selected note
Alt+Shift+Enter	Insert wiki links to all results

Mod means Ctrl on Windows and Linux or Cmd on macOS. Alt means Option on macOS.

License

MIT