Insider

An Obsidian plugin that turns YouTube videos, web pages, PDFs, and direct questions into structured knowledge notes, then automatically links them to related ideas across your vault.

Powered by DeepSeek (OpenAI-compatible API).

Install

Community Plugins (recommended)

Once listed in the Obsidian catalog, search for Insider under Settings → Community plugins → Browse and install with one click.

Manual install

1. Download manifest.json, main.js, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Copy them into <Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/insider/.
3. Enable Insider under Settings → Community plugins.

Local development

./install-to-vault.sh /path/to/your/ObsidianVault

Or build manually:

npm install
npm run build
cp manifest.json main.js styles.css /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/insider/

Setup

1. Settings → Insider — enter your DeepSeek API key and output folder (default To-Process).
2. Open the sidebar via the sparkles ribbon icon or the command Open Insider sidebar.

Settings persist automatically in <Vault>/.obsidian/plugins/insider/data.json.

Features

Generate from URL or PDF

Paste a YouTube, Reddit, X/Twitter, or PDF URL (or a vault PDF path). Optionally add instructions. Insider fetches the source, generates a report or summary, and writes a new note.

Ask a question

Enter a question to generate a standalone research report as a new vault note.

Related notes

• Keyword mode — fast overlap-based matching with AI lens/reason validation.
• Semantic snapshot mode — scans your vault into compact AI snapshots, then finds deeper connections.

Enable Compare with existing notes and choose the algorithm in the sidebar Options panel.

Refresh semantic snapshots appears only when compare is on and algorithm is set to semantic snapshot.

Supported sources

Source	Behavior
YouTube	Transcript via InnerTube API; optional timestamps and audio-cue stripping
Reddit	Public JSON endpoint for post + top comments
X/Twitter	API v2 (requires bearer token in settings)
PDF	URL or vault-local path
Question	Standalone research report (no URL fetch)

Development

npm install
npm run dev    # watch mode — rebuilds main.js on save
npm run build  # production build

Reload Obsidian (or disable/re-enable the plugin) after rebuilding.

Releasing

1. Bump version in manifest.json, package.json, and versions.json.
2. Run npm run build.
3. Commit main.js and manifest changes.
4. Create a GitHub release tagged exactly the version number (e.g. 1.0.0, no v prefix).
5. Attach manifest.json, main.js, and styles.css to the release.

License

See LICENSE.