Sir Scribbles

A small ACP (Agent Client Protocol) chat sidebar for your notes. Obsidian on macOS is the currently supported host. The plugin is intended to work with multiple ACP agents; Kiro V3 CLI is the currently supported provider, with its launch arguments and permission handling implemented today. Other ACP providers are planned and are not yet selectable or validated.

Obsidian hosts the plugin; the ACP agent supplies the conversation and tools.

Disclosures

• Runs an external program. The plugin starts the Kiro CLI executable you choose, only when you click Start agent or Open a past chat, or send your first prompt. Each chat tab runs its own Kiro process (up to five at once). It never installs, updates or downloads anything.
• Requires a Kiro account. Kiro needs its own login; the plugin stores no credentials and has no payment features.
• Network access through Kiro. The plugin itself makes no network requests. Kiro sends your prompts, attached note text, and any images or text files you attach to its AI provider.
• Files outside the vault. Kiro starts in the vault folder but can read, write or run anything its own permissions allow, including outside the vault. Actions Kiro asks about appear in the sidebar for approval; actions already allowed by Kiro's configuration may run without asking.
• Saved approval rules. Choosing Always allow or Always deny asks Kiro to save a rule for this vault in its workspace permissions.yaml, under ~/.kiro/workspace-roots/ outside the vault. Kiro then applies it without asking, in every chat. The plugin never writes that file itself.
• No telemetry or ads. The plugin keeps conversations in memory only. Kiro keeps its own chat history; Open a past chat asks Kiro for it. The only saved setting is the executable path, stored on this device.

Install

Sir Scribbles requires Obsidian 1.5.0 or later on macOS and an already installed and signed-in Kiro CLI (see below).

• Community plugins: in Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for Sir Scribbles, install it and enable it.
• Manually: download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into YOUR_VAULT/.obsidian/plugins/sir-scribbles/, then enable Sir Scribbles under Settings → Community plugins.

Open the sidebar through the ribbon button or the Sir Scribbles: Open chat command.

Use the sidebar

1. On first setup, enter the absolute path to your already installed Kiro executable. The path is saved and reused; later chats show Start agent without asking for the path again. Change it under Settings → Community plugins → Sir Scribbles if the executable moves or startup fails. Settings also provides Validate and save, which checks the file without running it.
2. Review the displayed vault directory. With a saved executable, sending your first prompt starts ACP and sends after initialization succeeds, using the agent's default model. To choose another model, click Start agent first and pick it from the composer; when the model offers more than one reasoning effort level, an effort picker appears beside it. Until you send, that new chat also lists this vault's past chats; choosing one restarts the agent into it and keeps your draft. Opening the sidebar or typing never starts a process. Starting Kiro may initialize its configured hooks and MCP servers. To continue an earlier conversation, click Open a past chat. This starts Kiro and lists the chats it has kept for this vault, newest first. Choose one to reopen it with its history, or Start a new chat. Reopened messages show no time, because the agent does not send one. Typing a prompt in the list starts a new chat. Agents that cannot list or reopen chats say so here.
3. Type a prompt. Select text in a Markdown editor and click + Selection to capture only that text, with its relative note path and line range. Inspect, replace or remove the snapshot before sending. Changes to the note do not change the attachment. A selection-only prompt is supported. Alternatively, click + File above the message field to attach only the current note's vault-relative path. A checkmark shows it is attached. Kiro can read the saved file using its own tools; unsaved edits are not sent. The file path and a selected-text snapshot can be attached together. Remove each separately, or click the checked file button to clear the file path. To attach images or text files, paste them into the message field (a screenshot or a file copied in Finder), drop them on it, or click the paperclip. Images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP) appear as thumbnails and go to the agent as images; larger ones are scaled to 2048 px on the longest side first. Text files (Markdown, code, CSV, JSON and similar UTF-8 files) appear with their name, and their contents are quoted into the prompt. Hover a thumbnail or file and click its × to remove it. A prompt carries up to 8 files, of which up to 4 images and 5 MB of images in total. Images need an agent that accepts them; if it does not, nothing is sent and the draft is kept.
4. Click Send or press Enter. Shift+Enter inserts a newline. Bot replies render Markdown; prompts, context previews, and tool activity stay plain text. Messages have timestamps and Copy controls that preserve the source. Raw HTML and images stay inert; web links, including bare https:// addresses, open only when clicked. Note links ([[Note|Label]], Markdown note paths, absolute or file:// paths inside the vault, and obsidian://open links to this vault) open through Obsidian when clicked. Headings and block references are supported. Cmd/Ctrl+click opens a new tab. Relative paths use the note attached or active when the prompt was sent, even if you switch notes later.
5. Review the approval card before choosing. It says in plain words what Kiro wants to do (for example "Kiro wants to write to a file in this vault"), lists the affected paths relative to the vault, marks any Outside vault, and previews the content to write, the text to replace, or the command to run. The full request stays under Technical details. Allow once and Deny once apply to this request only. When Kiro offers Always allow or Always deny, they appear on a second row, and the card says what the rule covers. Choosing one asks Kiro to save that rule for this vault only, in Kiro's own workspace settings outside the vault, and Kiro stops asking for matching actions in every chat. Kiro reads rules as patterns, so a folder rule also covers everything inside it. The plugin never widens the rule or saves it for all projects. Always choices are hidden when Kiro marks the request as not persistable, when its workspace is not this vault, when the request carries metadata the plugin does not recognize, or when the resource contains pattern characters (* ? [ ] { } \), which would make the saved rule wider than the request. To edit or remove a saved rule, change Kiro's workspace permissions.yaml (under ~/.kiro/workspace-roots/). Partial requests use earlier details from the same tool call; missing arguments are identified in the approval card. Unsupported consent semantics still cancel the request. Existing Kiro policy may allow actions without asking the sidebar.
6. Stop requests cancellation and disables approvals. Force stop agent becomes available after five seconds if the turn is still unsettled.
7. Chats open in tabs at the top of the sidebar. + opens another chat, up to five; each has its own Kiro process, model, approvals and status dot, and keeps running while you look at another tab. Closing a tab confirms discarding its content, ends its process and keeps Kiro's own history, so it can be reopened later. Closing the panel or unloading the plugin discards client content and stops every owned process group. A tab whose cleanup is uncertain stays open with Force stop agent until recovery succeeds.

On a normal Obsidian quit, the plugin registers an awaited cleanup task: it ends ACP, sends SIGTERM to its owned process group, and escalates to SIGKILL after two seconds if needed. Each conversation is discarded from the sidebar; reopening the sidebar starts with one fresh tab. Crashes, force quits, and descendants that detach from the process group cannot be guaranteed to clean up.

Only the executable path is saved, in this device's local storage. The plugin does not archive prompts, attachments, transcripts, session IDs or tool details. Past chats come from the agent each time you open the list. Kiro/provider history, inherited environment, hooks, MCP servers and native permissions remain outside the plugin's control. The vault directory is context, not a sandbox.

Help your agent write clickable links

The plugin does not add instructions to your prompts. To have the agent write links the sidebar can open, paste this into the instruction file your agent reads from the vault root (for example AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md or a Kiro steering file). Replace the ticket URLs with your own tracker's.

## Replying in Sir Scribbles (Obsidian sidebar)

Replies are shown as Markdown in an Obsidian sidebar. Write links so they can be clicked:

- **Notes:** use wikilinks with paths relative to the vault root: `[[Projects/Launch notes|Launch notes]]`.
  - Link to a heading with `[[Note#Heading]]` and to a block with `[[Note#^block-id]]`.
  - Inside a table, escape the pipe: `[[Note\|Label]]`.
  - Markdown links also work, but encode spaces: `[Launch notes](Projects/Launch%20notes.md)`.
- **Web pages:** always write the full `https://` address, e.g. `[Docs](https://example.com/docs)`. `example.com` without `https://` stays plain text.
- **Tickets and PRs:** link to them, never just the ID: `[PROJ-123](https://yourcompany.atlassian.net/browse/PROJ-123)`, `[owner/repo#42](https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/42)`.
- **Not supported:** images, `![[embeds]]` and raw HTML appear as plain text. Paths outside this vault can't be opened.
- Name notes by their vault path so the user can open them, e.g. `[[Daily/2026-10-07]]`, not "today's note".

Install/authenticate Kiro separately

The official download page provides this command:

curl -fsSL https://cli.kiro.dev/install | bash
kiro-cli login
command -v kiro-cli

The authentication guide documents the terminal login flow. The plugin neither installs nor authenticates Kiro.

Development

Requires Node.js 22+. Runtime uses Node/Electron built-ins, Obsidian's supplied API, and the pinned markdown-it parser bundled into main.js. Build and test dependencies are pinned.

npm ci --ignore-scripts
npm test
npm run check
npm run build

The build writes main.js to the repository root, beside manifest.json and styles.css, and copies all three files into dist/sir-scribbles/. main.js is not committed; releases attach it. To release, bump the version in manifest.json, package.json and versions.json, then push a tag equal to that version (for example 0.0.2, no v). The workflow builds a draft release to review and publish.