System Terminal

A real terminal in Obsidian's right sidebar, running your system shell (PowerShell, cmd, bash, zsh…).

No Python and no node-pty: a small Go program, termsidian-pty, opens a real system terminal (ConPTY on Windows, PTY on macOS and Linux), and the plugin renders it with xterm.js.

Termsidian is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Obsidian.

(Léeme en español: README.es.md)

Tested systems

System	Obsidian install	Status
Windows 11	Official installer	✅ Works
Linux (Fedora KDE)	Flatpak	✅ Works (needs a permission)
macOS	—	⚪ Builds, untested

What it does

• Opens a terminal in the right sidebar, starting in the vault folder.
• A real terminal: colors, Tab completion, Ctrl+C, history, and interactive programs.
• Resizes when you resize the panel.
• Uses your Obsidian theme's monospace font and colors, and follows theme changes.
• Leaves no orphan processes when you close the panel.

Usage

Open the terminal with the terminal icon in the left ribbon, or Ctrl+P → Termsidian: Open terminal.

The shell is PowerShell on Windows, and on macOS and Linux whatever $SHELL points to. If Obsidian is installed via Flatpak, there's one extra step: see Linux on Flatpak.

Key	What it does
Ctrl+C	With text selected, copies it. Without a selection, interrupts the running program, as usual.
Ctrl+V	Pastes the clipboard.
Enter after exit	Opens a new shell.

Closing the panel kills the shell and everything running inside it. Programs with their own window that you launched from the terminal (for example code .) stay open.

Installing in your vault

Requirements: Obsidian desktop 1.7.2 or later, with community plugins enabled (restricted mode off).

<your-vault> is the folder that contains .obsidian.

1. On the Releases page, download termsidian-<version>.zip. It bundles the plugin and the helper for all 6 supported systems.

2. Unzip it inside <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/. On Windows, right-click → Extract All. You should end up with a termsidian folder inside plugins.

   With Git Bash, macOS, or Linux (swap in the version you want):

   cd "<your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins"
   curl -LO https://github.com/inusui/obsidian-termsidian/releases/download/0.1.0/termsidian-0.1.0.zip
   unzip -o termsidian-0.1.0.zip && rm termsidian-0.1.0.zip
   

3. In Obsidian, go to Settings → Community plugins, click the reload button next to "Installed plugins", and enable Termsidian.

The plugin folder ends up looking like this:

<your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/termsidian/
 ├─ main.js
 ├─ manifest.json
 ├─ styles.css
 ├─ LICENSE
 ├─ THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md
 └─ bin/
     ├─ termsidian-pty-windows-amd64.exe
     ├─ termsidian-pty-windows-arm64.exe
     ├─ termsidian-pty-darwin-amd64
     ├─ termsidian-pty-darwin-arm64
     ├─ termsidian-pty-linux-amd64
     └─ termsidian-pty-linux-arm64

Prefer to build it yourself instead of downloading the release? See DEVELOPMENT.md.

Updating

1. Disable the plugin, or close Obsidian. Windows won't let you replace a .exe that's in use.
2. Install the new version by unzipping the new release over the same folder. Files get overwritten.
3. Enable the plugin again.

Synced vault (Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive…): the bin/ folder syncs too, so the plugin works on all your machines, whether Windows, macOS, or Linux.

Linux on Flatpak

If you installed Obsidian from Flathub, Discover, or GNOME Software, it runs inside a Flatpak sandbox with its own filesystem. Without this step, the terminal opens inside that sandbox: it shows a prompt like sh-5.3$ and can't find your programs.

Termsidian detects Flatpak and opens your real system shell with flatpak-spawn --host. For that, Obsidian needs a permission it doesn't have by default. Run this once in a regular terminal, outside Obsidian:

flatpak override --user --talk-name=org.freedesktop.Flatpak md.obsidian.Obsidian

Then fully quit Obsidian and reopen it. Until the permission is granted, the terminal runs inside the sandbox and shows a yellow warning with this same command.

What this permission means: it lets Obsidian and all its plugins run programs outside the sandbox, same as a non-Flatpak install. That's what a terminal needs to see your system. To remove it:

flatpak override --user --no-talk-name=org.freedesktop.Flatpak md.obsidian.Obsidian

The terminal starts in the vault folder. If that folder doesn't exist outside the sandbox (for example, a vault opened through the document portal), it starts in your home folder instead.

Troubleshooting

The terminal shows "[Termsidian] Can't find the helper at …"

The binary for your system is missing from bin/. Reinstall from a release (Installing in your vault).

On macOS or Linux, the helper won't start due to a permissions error

Some sync services don't preserve the execute permission. Restore it:

chmod +x "<your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/termsidian/bin/"termsidian-pty-*

On Linux, the prompt is sh-5.3$ and it can't find my programs

Obsidian is installed via Flatpak and is missing the permission. See Linux on Flatpak.

Checking error messages

Open Obsidian's console with Ctrl+Shift+I, Console tab. Messages from the helper start with [termsidian-pty].

Why a Go helper?

• node-pty needs to be recompiled for every Electron version, and breaks when Obsidian updates.
• A Python helper needs Python installed, and the pty module doesn't exist on Windows.
• Go produces a single, dependency-free binary for each system.

More detail on how the plugin and helper talk to each other in DEVELOPMENT.md.

Contributing

Termsidian is maintained by a single person. Suggestions and bug reports are welcome as an issue, but pull requests aren't accepted: any PR gets closed automatically with a comment linking here. If you want to propose a change, open an issue describing it.

Security

If you find a vulnerability, don't open a public issue: report it privately as explained in SECURITY.md.

License

MIT.