Dendrite — AI-Powered Knowledge Mind Mapping for Obsidian

Dendrite turns your Obsidian vault into a living knowledge graph. Each note is a condensed zettel (knowledge card) with AI-suggested expansion directions. Click a suggestion to grow your map — the AI generates contextual content based on everything you've already explored.

Features

• Canvas-based mind map — Uses Obsidian's native Canvas for spatial visualization
• AI-generated content — Each zettel gets a subtitle, dense body text, and expansion suggestions via OpenAI (default: GPT-5.2)
• Suggestions in frontmatter — Stored as YAML arrays, accessible from context menus and the expand modal
• Click-to-create — Click any [[unresolved link]] in a dendrite note to auto-create a new zettel with AI content
• Context menu integration — Right-click any node in the file explorer to see suggestions and expand
• Mission-driven — A configurable mission statement guides the AI toward holistic, cross-domain connections
• Works without AI — Falls back to curated mock suggestions when no API key is configured

Getting Started

1. Enable the plugin in Settings → Community Plugins
2. (Optional) Add your OpenAI API key in Settings → Dendrite
3. Open the command palette (Ctrl+P) and run Dendrite: Initialize knowledge map
4. Explore the canvas — click nodes, right-click for suggestions, click [[links]] to grow

Zettel Format

Each note follows a consistent structure:

---
title: "Systems Thinking"
subtitle: "Seeing interconnections rather than isolated events."
created: 2026-04-07T10:00:00Z
tags: [dendrite]
suggestions:
  - title: "Feedback Loops"
    subtitle: "How circular causality creates emergent behavior."
  - title: "Leverage Points"
    subtitle: "Where small changes produce large systemic effects."
---

# Systems Thinking

> Seeing interconnections rather than isolated events.

Body text — concise, dense, opinionated. Can include [[wiki-links]] to other nodes,
bullet lists, or multiple paragraphs as the content demands.

## Directions to explore

- [[Feedback Loops]] — How circular causality creates emergent behavior.
- [[Leverage Points]] — Where small changes produce large systemic effects.

Settings

Setting	Description	Default
OpenAI API Key	Your API key for content generation	(empty — mock mode)
OpenAI Model	Which model to use	GPT-5.2
Root folder	Base folder for all Dendrite files	Dendrite
Nodes folder	Subfolder for zettel notes (within root)	Nodes
Canvas name	Name of the canvas file (within root)	Knowledge Map
Mission	Guiding mission used as LLM context	Grow holistically...

Development

cd dendrite-plugin
npm install --include=dev
npm run dev     # watch mode, outputs to vault plugin folder
npm run build   # production build

Author

Igor Krbavcic — github.com/ekoori

License

MIT