Obsidian Vault Launcher

Open your Obsidian vault in VS Code, Cursor, Antigravity, or Zed with a single click

A macOS desktop plugin for Obsidian that adds a ribbon button to launch your vault (and optionally the active file) in your preferred code editor.

Highlights

• One-click launch from the ribbon
• Open current file option to jump directly to the active note
• Unified fallback app-open attempts use open -a first, then open -b
• Path-safe handling for spaces and special characters
• Zero shell execution for security and reliability

Supported Editors

Editor	Launch Order
Visual Studio Code	code CLI -> open -a "Visual Studio Code" -> open -b com.microsoft.VSCode
Cursor	open -a "Cursor" -> open -b com.todesktop.230313mzl4w4u92
Antigravity	agy CLI -> open -a "Antigravity" -> open -b com.google.antigravity
Zed	open -a "Zed" -> open -b dev.zed.Zed

CLI editors (VS Code, Antigravity) try CLI first, then app-open fallback (open -a, then open -b).

Installation

Community Plugins (Recommended)

1. Open Settings > Community plugins in Obsidian
2. Search for Vault Launcher
3. Click Install, then Enable

Manual Installation

1. Download vault-launcher.zip from the latest release
2. Extract to <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/
3. Enable the plugin in Settings > Community plugins

Usage

1. Click the rocket icon in the ribbon
2. Select Quick launch editor in settings to change default editor
3. Toggle Open current file to include active note
4. Enable editors in Show in command palette to add commands

Configuration

Settings are persisted via Obsidian's loadData() / saveData():

Setting	Type	Default	Description
editorType	vscode | cursor | antigravity | zed	vscode	Default editor for ribbon icon
openCurrentFile	boolean	false	Include active file in launch
enabledEditors	Record<EditorType, boolean>	all false	Editors to show in command palette

---

Development

Prerequisites

• macOS
• Bun runtime
• Obsidian 1.7.2+

Setup

# Clone to plugin directory
git clone https://github.com/SuperJony/vault-launcher \
  <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/vault-launcher

# Install dependencies
bun install

# Build
bun run build

Watch Mode

bun run dev

Build

bun run build  # includes type checking

Test

Unit tests:

bun run test

Integration tests (launches real applications):

INTEGRATION=1 \
  INTEGRATION_VAULT_PATH=/path/to/vault \
  INTEGRATION_FILE_PATH=/path/to/vault/note.md \
  bun run test:integration

Lint & Format

bun run lint
bun run format

Release

bun run bump patch  # or minor/major, updates package.json + manifest.json + versions.json
git push && git push --tags

GitHub Actions will:

1. Build the plugin
2. Verify tag matches manifest.json version
3. Create a draft release with vault-launcher.zip, main.js, and manifest.json

Then publish the draft release on GitHub.

Technical Notes

• Requires Obsidian 1.7.2+ (for removeCommand API)
• macOS desktop only
• Uses spawn with shell: false for secure path handling
• Paths passed as separate arguments to preserve spaces and special characters
• 10-second timeout per launch attempt
• App-open fallback order is open -a, then open -b; CLI editors try CLI first
• CLI failure triggers fallback; timeout does not

Acknowledgments

Inspired by open-obsidian-to-ide by @maoxiaoke.

License

MIT