OpenClaw

approved

by oscarhenrycollins

Forked from humanitylabs-org/obsidianclaw

This plugin has not been manually reviewed by Obsidian staff. Chat with your OpenClaw AI agent in a sidebar. Your vault is the agent's workspace.

★ 27 stars↓ 4,228 downloadsUpdated 2mo agoMIT
Install in ObsidianView on GitHub

OpenClaw

Chat with your OpenClaw AI agent directly from Obsidian.

Your vault becomes the workspace. Your AI lives in the sidebar. No browser tabs, no separate apps — just your notes and your AI, side by side.

Features

  • Chat sidebar — Talk to your AI agent from any Obsidian tab
  • Streaming responses — See replies appear in real-time
  • Markdown rendering — Code blocks, lists, links rendered natively
  • Tool call visibility — See files read/written, commands run, pages fetched
  • Cross-device sync — Chat history and tool calls persist via Obsidian Sync
  • "Ask about this note" — Send any note as context with one command
  • Dark/light theme — Follows your Obsidian theme automatically

Prerequisites

Before you install the plugin, you'll need:

  • OpenClaw gateway running somewhere (Mac, Linux, Raspberry Pi)
  • Tailscale on all your devices
  • Gateway bound to Tailscale: openclaw config set gateway.bind tailnet && openclaw gateway restart
  • A small patch to OpenClaw so it accepts Obsidian's app://obsidian.md origin — see below.

One-time OpenClaw patch (required)

Obsidian's renderer loads from app://obsidian.md. Per the URL spec, custom schemes have a "null" origin, so vanilla OpenClaw rejects the websocket handshake from Obsidian. This plugin needs a one-line fallback added to OpenClaw's origin check.

Run this on your gateway machine:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oscarhenrycollins/obsidianclaw/main/scripts/patch-openclaw.sh | sudo bash

The script is idempotent, backs up the file it edits, and restarts the gateway. Review it first: scripts/patch-openclaw.sh.

⚠️ Re-run this after every openclaw update — gateway upgrades wipe the patch. We're tracking an upstream fix so this requirement can be removed.

Install

Official Community Plugin (recommended)

  1. In Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins → Browse
  2. Search for OpenClaw
  3. Click Install, then Enable

Plugin page: https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/openclaw

BRAT (optional)

If you want pre-release builds:

  1. Install BRAT
  2. BRAT → Add Beta Plugin
  3. Use repo: oscarhenrycollins/obsidianclaw

Connect

The setup wizard opens automatically after install:

  1. Gateway URL:
    • Preferred: https://<your-tailnet-hostname> (plugin converts to wss://.../ws)
    • Alternate: ws://<your-tailscale-ip>:18789
  2. Auth Token: from ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json → gateway.auth.token
  3. Click Test connection
  4. Approve the device from the OpenClaw dashboard or CLI: 
    openclaw devices list
openclaw devices approve <requestId>

Done. The device is remembered permanently.

If connection fails, first confirm gateway health and Serve routes: openclaw status and tailscale serve status

Commands

CommandDescription
OpenClaw: Toggle chat sidebarOpen/close the chat panel
OpenClaw: Ask about current noteSend the active note as context
OpenClaw: Reconnect to gatewayRe-establish the connection
OpenClaw: Run setup wizardRe-run the onboarding flow

Troubleshooting

"Could not connect" / "Disconnected" — Most common cause: the gateway stopped. SSH into your gateway machine and run openclaw gateway restart. If that fixes it, the gateway had crashed. Also check: Is Tailscale running on both devices? Is the URL correct (ws://<tailscale-ip>:18789)? Is the token right?

Connection rejected right after an OpenClaw update — openclaw update wipes the origin-check patch. Re-run the one-time OpenClaw patch on your gateway machine.

"Pairing required" — Every new device needs a one-time approval. Run openclaw devices list and openclaw devices approve <requestId> on your gateway machine, or approve from the dashboard.

Switching devices — Force-quit Obsidian and reopen. It picks up synced data from the other device.

Security

Three layers: Tailscale encrypts all traffic (WireGuard VPN), gateway token authenticates connections, and Ed25519 device keys fingerprint each device. Your keys never leave your machine.

Building from Source

git clone https://github.com/oscarhenrycollins/obsidianclaw.git
cd obsidianclaw
npm install
npm run build

Copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css to .obsidian/plugins/openclaw/.

Links

License

MIT

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