Lean Search

A fast, lean search for Obsidian that always surfaces the note you want — built around precise matching and heavy frecency, like zoxide for your vault.

It started as a rethink of Omnisearch: a familiar search modal with a smaller memory footprint, incremental background indexing, and ranking that strongly favors the notes you actually use.

Why it's different

Problem in the old approach	What Lean Search does
Kept two full copies of every note's text in RAM	Keeps only lightweight metadata + one inverted index; excerpts are read on demand
Serialized a fragile index into IndexedDB	A versioned plugin-local cache with validation, atomic replacement, and safe rebuild fallback
Re-indexed everything up front (freezes on big vaults)	Restores the previous index first, then refreshes only changed notes in the background
Recency used file modification time, weakly, and was off by default	Frecency: open-count × recency, tracked from file-open — recently/often opened notes win
Heading matches buried under body-text term-frequency	Explicit title/heading substring bonuses — heading hits reliably rise to the top

How ranking works (zoxide model)

Each result's final score is base × field × recency × edit:

1. base (match) — MiniSearch relevance. Terms are AND-combined with prefix matching; fuzzy is off by default for predictability.
2. field — exact title match, title/heading/alias substring hits get strong multipliers.
3. recency (open-frecency) — 1 + recencyWeight × ln(1 + frecency), where frecency = open_count × recency_bucket (4× within an hour, 2× within a day, 0.5× within a week, else 0.25×).
4. edit — an optional, gentle boost for files you modified recently (1 + modifiedRecencyWeight × bucket), independent of how often you open them.

The result: type a fragment of a note you opened recently and it jumps to #1. Leave the box empty and you get your most-frecent notes instantly, like zoxide with no argument.

Tune Recency weight and Recently edited boost in settings (both 0 = off). Turn on Debug scoring to see the full match × field × recency × edit = final breakdown under each result.

Query syntax

You type	Meaning
foo bar	both terms must match
"foo bar"	exact phrase
#project	must be tagged #project
-draft	must not contain draft

Keyboard

↑↓ navigate · Enter open · Ctrl/⌘ Enter open in new pane · Ctrl/⌘ ⌥ Enter new split · ⌥ Enter insert link · Tab search within the selected note · ⌥ ↑↓ query history · Ctrl/⌘ O open in background · Esc close.

Build & install

npm install
npm run build      # outputs dist/main.js
npm test           # runs the frecency + query smoke test

Copy dist/main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/lean-search/, then enable Lean Search in Community Plugins. For development, npm run dev rebuilds on change.

One-command install into your vault(s)

scripts/install.sh builds and copies the plugin into every vault listed in VAULT_PLUGIN_DIRS. The convenience wrapper install-plugin.sh (machine-local, gitignored) hardcodes your vault paths:

./install-plugin.sh          # build locally and install
npm run vault-install        # same thing

scripts/release.sh (via npm run release -- <version>) bumps versions, builds, commits, and tags a release.

Settings highlights

• Recency weight, Recently edited boost, and Show recent notes on empty query — the frecency behavior.
• Index note body text — turn off for the absolute leanest setup (titles/headings/tags only).
• Persistent search index — restored across Obsidian restarts, then reconciled lazily from file modification times.
• Fuzziness — keep on Exact + prefix for the most predictable results.
• Field weights — tune how much titles, headings, tags, etc. count.
• Show image preview — thumbnail of each result's first image (or frontmatter cover/banner/image). Reuses content already loaded for the visible results, so it doesn't slow search; recents stay instant.
• Debug scoring — show the match × field × recency × edit = final breakdown (and matched terms) under each result, for tuning.

License

Apache 2.0 © Felix Leopold.