Org Journal

Obsidian plugin for a date-tree journal kept in a single Org file. Works alongside orgmode-cm6, which provides the .org editor view.

Requires Orgmode (cm6). Obsidian can't declare plugin dependencies, so install and enable it yourself (Settings → Community plugins). Without it Org Journal shows a notice on startup and its commands can't open the journal.

File layout (same as the Emacs file+olp+datetree capture template):

* 2026
** 2026-08 August
*** 2026-08-29 Saturday
**** 23:02 Title                                         :tag1:tag2:
Free-form text...

Screenshots

Journal look and calendar:

Tree view:

New entry:

Journal look, close up:

Commands

Run from the command palette (Ctrl+P, prefix "Org Journal: "). Assign hotkeys in Settings → Hotkeys.

Command	What it does	Ribbon
New entry	Asks for an optional title and tags, then adds **** HH:MM title :tags: under today's year/month/day headings (created in sorted position if missing) and puts the cursor on the body line. Optionally hides everything except today's path and the new entry.	pencil
Show all entries	Undoes the hiding done by New entry. Reopening the file does the same.
Open today	Jumps to today's day heading (or says there is none yet).
Open calendar	Sidebar month view. Days with entries have a dot (hover for the count); click one to jump to it.	calendar
Open tree	Left-sidebar tree like the file explorer: years and months are folders (with entry counts), then days, then entries with their tags. Click a folder to expand/collapse, click an entry to jump to it, double-click a day to jump to its heading. Chronological (oldest first); the current year and month start open.	folder-tree
Search entries	Fuzzy search over date, title, tags and body text; Enter jumps to the entry.
Filter entries by tag	Lists tags with counts, then the entries under the chosen tag.

Journal look

The journal file (and only that file) gets its own styling: year, month, day and entry headings in a clear hierarchy, HH:MM as a badge, :tags: as pills (the colons and alignment padding are hidden unless the cursor is on that line), leading asterisks hidden (shown again on the line you're editing), entry text indented under its heading, a readable column width, and the preamble (#+TITLE / #+STARTUP lines before the first heading) hidden. Turn it off with the Journal look setting.

Colours come from your Obsidian theme (accent colour, text and muted text), so they follow light/dark mode.

Settings

• Journal file: path inside the vault (default journal.org).
• Week starts on Monday: calendar layout.
• Hide other entries on new entry: on by default.
• Journal look: on by default.
• Hide preamble: part of the journal look, on by default.
• Tags column: right edge for :tags: on entry headings (default 77, as in Emacs).

License

MIT, see LICENSE.

Development

Source is in src/: core.js (pure date-tree/Org logic, unit-tested), calendar.js, modals.js, hide.js (CodeMirror line hiding), tree.js (sidebar tree), style.js (journal look decorations; CSS is in styles.css), settings.js and main.js (the plugin). main.js at the repo root is the esbuild bundle Obsidian loads; it is generated and gitignored.

npm install
npm test         # unit tests for src/core.js
npm run build    # bundle src/ -> main.js
npm run dev      # rebuild on change

Trying changes in Obsidian

1. Tell the build where your vault's plugin folder is (once). Put the path in a gitignored .deploy-target file, or set OBSIDIAN_PLUGIN_DIR: echo "~/vault/.obsidian/plugins/org-journal" > .deploy-target
2. npm run build (or npm run dev, which rebuilds whenever you save a file in src/) now also copies main.js, manifest.json and styles.css there.
3. Obsidian only reloads plugin code on startup or when the plugin is toggled: Settings → Community plugins → switch Org Journal off and on (or restart).
4. Open the developer console (Ctrl+Shift+I) to see errors.

Don't symlink the checkout into the vault: Syncthing (and some other sync tools) don't follow symlinks, so the plugin would never reach your phone. The deploy target must be a real folder holding only the three built files.

Put logic that doesn't need Obsidian or CodeMirror in src/core.js and cover it in test/core.test.js; keep the Obsidian-facing code in the other modules thin.

Releasing

Bump version in manifest.json and package.json, add it to versions.json, commit, then git tag <version> && git push origin main <version>. The tag must equal the manifest version (no v prefix); the GitHub workflow builds, tests and publishes a release with main.js, manifest.json and styles.css.

Install

Copy main.js, manifest.json and styles.css into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/org-journal/ and enable it. Set the journal file path in the plugin settings (default journal.org).