Terminal for Obsidian

Integrate consoles, shells, and terminals inside Obsidian.

Repository · Changelog · Community plugin · Related · Features · Installation · Usage · Contributing · Security

For first time users, read the installation section first!

This file is automatically opened on first install. You can reopen it in settings or command palette.

Features

• Start external terminals from Obsidian.
• Integrate terminals into Obsidian.
• Has an emulated developer console usable on all platforms.
• Supports multiple terminal profiles.
• Has built-in keyboard shortcuts.
• Automatically save and restore integrated terminal history.
• Find in terminal.
• Save terminal history as file.
• Customize terminal appearance.

Installation

1. Install plugin.
   • Community plugins
     1. Install the plugin from community plugins directly.
   • Manual
     1. Create directory terminal under .obsidian/plugins of your vault.
     2. Place manifest.json, main.js, and styles.css from the latest release into the directory.
   • Building (rolling)
     1. Clone this repository, including its submodules.
     2. Install bun. See https://bun.sh for installation.
     3. Run bun install in the root directory.
     4. Run bun run obsidian:install <vault directory> in the root directory.
   • Obsidian42 - BRAT (rolling)
     • See their readme.
2. (optional for Windows, recommended) Install Python and dependencies.
   1. Install Python 3.9 or above.
   2. (Windows only) Run pip3 install psutil==5.9.5 pywinctl==0.0.50 typing_extensions==4.7.1.
   3. Configure Python executable in profile settings. Press the "Check" button to validate the Python configuration. Each profile needs to be configured separately.
3. Enable plugin.
4. (optional) Configure plugin settings.

Usage

• To start a new external or integrated terminal
  • Ribbon
    1. Click on the Open terminal ribbon.
    2. Opens the default terminal if you have set up one. Otherwise, choose the desired profile.
  • Context menu
    1. Right-click on files, folders, or tab headers.
    2. Choose the desired action (and profile).
  • Command palette
    1. Press Ctrl+P or click on the Open command palette ribbon next to the left window border.
    2. Choose the desired action (and profile).
  • Select profile modal
    1. Choose the desired profile. Press Ctrl to edit the profile before use. The item (Temporary profile) starts a terminal with a temporary profile.
• To save and restore integrated terminal history
  1. Keep the terminal open when exiting Obsidian.
  2. Terminal history will be restored next time Obsidian is opened.
• Additional actions
  • Includes
    • Clear terminal: (1), (4)
    • Copy terminal: (1)
    • Edit terminal: (1)
    • Export, import, or edit settings: (2), (3)
    • Find in terminal: (1), (4)
    • Open documentation: (2), (3)
    • Restart terminal: (1)
    • Save terminal history: (1)
  • Available by
    • (1) Right-click on tab header/More options
    • (2) Open settings
    • (3) Open command palette
    • (4) Use keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts

The keyboard shortcuts can be customized in hotkeys settings.

Global

• Toggle focus on last terminal: Ctrl+Shift+`
  • Focus on last terminal: (unbound; useful if you want separate keys for focus and unfocus)

Terminal is focused

When a terminal is focused, other keyboard shortcuts (including Obsidian and plugin hotkeys) are disabled. Only the following keyboard shortcuts work. Thus you can ignore Obsidian complaining about conflicting keys for the following keyboard shortcuts.

• Clear terminal: Ctrl+Shift+K, Command+Shift+K (Apple)
• Close terminal: Ctrl+Shift+W, Command+Shift+W (Apple)
• Find in terminal: Ctrl+Shift+F, Command+Shift+F (Apple)
• Toggle focus on last terminal: Ctrl+Shift+` (same as above)
  • Unfocus terminal: (unbound; useful if you want separate keys for focus and unfocus)

Theming

Theming is possible. However, there is no user-friendly interface for now.

1. Open the profile editing modal.
2. Click on the Edit button labeled Data. It should open up a new modal in which there is a large textbox.
3. Notice terminalOptions in the text area labeled Data. Refer to the xterm.js documentation (ITerminalOptions) to set the options. Nested objects may need to be used.
   • You can also configure global defaults via the plugin settings page (see Profile defaults). Those options act as a fallback for every profile unless a profile explicitly overrides them.
4. Save the profile. Changes should apply immediately.

Profiles

This plugin comes with several profile presets that you can reference.

When setting up a terminal profile, you need to distinguish between shells and terminal emulators. (Search online if needed.) Generally, integrated profiles only work with shells while external ones only work with terminal emulators.

Examples

Shells

• Bash: bash --login
• Bourne shell: sh
• Command Prompt: cmd
• Dash: dash
• Git Bash: <Git installation>\bin\bash.exe --login (e.g. C:\Program Files\Git\bin\bash.exe)
• PowerShell Core: pwsh
• Windows PowerShell: powershell
• Windows Subsystem for Linux: wsl or wsl -d <distribution name>
• Z shell: zsh --login

Terminal emulators

• Command Prompt: cmd
• GNOME Terminal: gnome-terminal
• Konsole: konsole
• Terminal (macOS): /System/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/macOS/Terminal "$PWD"
• Windows Terminal: wt
• iTerm2: /Applications/iTerm.app/Contents/MacOS/iTerm2 "$PWD"
• xterm: xterm

Miscellaneous

This plugin patches require so that require("obsidian") and other Obsidian modules work in the developer console. It is toggleable as Expose internal modules in settings.

In the developer console, a context variable $$ is passed into the code, which can be used to dynamically change terminal options.

The full API is available from src/@types/obsidian-terminal.ts.

Troubleshooting

• Is the plugin useful on mobile?
  • Compared to on desktop, it is much less useful. The only use for it for now is opening a developer console on mobile.
• Why do hotkeys not work?
  • If the terminal is in focus, all Obsidian hotkeys are disabled so that you can type special characters into the terminal. You can unfocus the terminal by pressing Ctrl+Shift+`, then you can use Obsidian hotkeys again.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

Changesets

This project uses changesets to manage the changelog. When creating a pull request, please add a changeset describing the changes. Add multiple changesets if your pull request changes several things. End each changeset with ([PR number](PR link) by [author username](author link)). For example, the newly created file under the directory .changeset should look like:

---
"example": patch
---

This is an example change. ([GH#1](https://github.com/ghost/example/pull/1) by [@ghost](https://github.com/ghost))

Linting, Commit, and Hooks

This project uses the following tools to ensure code and commit quality:

• ESLint: Linting for TypeScript/JavaScript. Run with bun run check (lint only) or bun run fix (auto-fix lint issues).
• Prettier: Code formatting. Run with bun run format (format all files) or bun run format:check (check formatting only).
• markdownlint: Lints Markdown files. Run with bun run markdownlint or auto-fix with bun run markdownlint:fix.
• commitlint: Enforces conventional commit messages. Used automatically on commit via Husky.
• husky: Manages Git hooks. Pre-commit runs lint-staged and pre-push runs commitlint.
• lint-staged: Runs linters on staged files. Markdown files are auto-fixed before commit.

Lint-staged note: The lint-staged configuration (.lintstagedrc.mjs) invokes formatter/linter binaries directly (for example prettier --write, eslint --cache --fix, markdownlint-cli2 --fix) so that the list of staged files is passed through to the tool. Invoking these via bun run would prevent lint-staged from forwarding filenames and cause the tool to operate on its default glob (or the entire repo). Use bun run format to format the entire repository when needed.

To set up locally:

1. Run bun install to install dependencies and set up hooks.
2. On commit, staged Markdown files will be linted and auto-fixed.
3. Commit messages are checked for conventional format.

You can manually run:

• bun run check — lint all code (no formatting)
• bun run fix — auto-fix lint issues (no formatting)
• bun run format — format all code with Prettier
• bun run format:check — check formatting with Prettier
• bun run markdownlint — check all Markdown files
• bun run markdownlint:fix — auto-fix Markdown files
• bun run commitlint — check commit messages in range

Configuration files:

• .eslintrc.* or eslint.config.mjs — ESLint rules
• .prettierrc — Prettier rules
• .prettierignore — Prettier ignore patterns
• .markdownlint.jsonc — markdownlint rules
• .commitlintrc.js — commitlint config
• .husky/ — Git hooks

Testing

This repository uses Vitest for fast unit tests. Tests live under tests/ and should be named *.spec.ts or *.spec.js.

• Run locally (non-interactive, coverage): bun run test (runs vitest run --coverage).
• Run locally (interactive / watch): bun run test:watch.
• Git hooks: The pre-push hook runs bun run test (see .husky/pre-push) and will block pushes if tests fail.

See vitest.config.mts for minimal config and further instructions.

Todos

The todos here, ordered alphabetically, are things planned for the plugin. There are no guarantees that they will be completed. However, we are likely to accept contributions for them.

• Connect to remote shells.
• Detect sandboxed environment and notify users.
• External link confirmation.
• Filter console log by severity in the developer console.
• Indicate that the terminal resizer has crashed or is disabled.
• Shared terminal tabs.
• Vim mode switch.

Translating

See assets/locales/README.md.

Security

We hope that there will never be any security vulnerabilities, but unfortunately it does happen. Please report them!

Supported versions

Version	Supported
rolling	✅
latest	✅
outdated	❌

Reporting a vulnerability

Please report a vulnerability by opening an new issue. We will get back to you as soon as possible.