Obsidian PA

An Obsidian plugin that provides an agentic interface to leverage AI agents within your Obsidian vault.

🚀 Beta Release — Full task automation now available! See Changelog for details.

Overview

Obsidian PA enables users to interact with AI capabilities directly in their note-taking workflow, bringing agentic development practices to personal knowledge management.

Developer: Fredrik Folkeryd
Background: Personal project built as an exercise in agentic development practices. Not affiliated with any organisation.

Features

Core AI Chat

• 💬 Streaming AI responses — Real-time output with conversation persistence
• 🔄 Two provider options:
  • GitHub Models (free tier) — GPT-4o, Llama, Mistral, and more
  • GitHub Copilot CLI — Premium models like Claude Opus 4.5 for Copilot Business/Enterprise
• 🔐 Secure credentials — 1Password CLI integration or direct token entry
• 📁 Folder-based privacy — Opt-in or opt-out data sharing controls

Write Operations (New in beta)

• ✏️ AI-assisted editing — Apply suggested edits with diff preview
• 💾 Automatic backups — All changes backed up with one-click revert
• 📜 Edit history — Browse and restore previous versions

Task Automation (New in beta)

• 🤖 Multi-step task plans — AI executes complex workflows:
  • Create, modify, delete, and move notes
  • Add wikilinks and tags
  • All with confirmation before execution
• 🗣️ Natural language tasks — Say "create a note about X" and it works
• 📊 Task history view — Browse past operations with rollback capability
• ↩️ Full rollback support — Undo entire task plans

Context Management

• 📎 Multi-file context — Select multiple files for AI to reference
• 📏 Token budget — Visual indicator of context window usage
• 💡 Smart suggestions — AI recommends relevant linked files

Prerequisites

You'll need one of the following:

Option A: GitHub Models (Free Tier)

1. A GitHub account
2. A Personal Access Token with Models: Read permission
3. (Optional) 1Password CLI for secure token management

Option B: GitHub Copilot CLI (Premium Models)

1. A GitHub Copilot Business or Enterprise licence
2. GitHub Copilot CLI installed:
   • macOS/Linux: brew install copilot-cli
   • Windows: winget install GitHub.Copilot
   • npm: npm install -g @github/copilot
3. Authenticated via OAuth (run copilot and follow prompts) or via PAT with "Copilot Requests" permission

Note: The older gh copilot extension has been deprecated in favour of the standalone copilot CLI.

Installation

From Community Plugins (Not yet supported)

Note: This plugin is not yet available in the Obsidian Community Plugins directory. Once submitted and approved, you'll be able to install it directly from Obsidian.

1. Open Obsidian Settings → Community plugins
2. Click "Browse" and search for "Personal Assistant"
3. Click "Install" then "Enable" </spanZ

Manual Installation

Download the latest release zip and run the included installer:

# Download and extract
# x-release-please-start-version
curl -L \
  https://github.com/FredrikFolkeryd/obsidian-pa/releases/download/obsidian-pa-v1.0.2-beta.3/obsidian-pa-latest.zip \
  -o /tmp/obsidian-pa.zip
# x-release-please-end
unzip -o /tmp/obsidian-pa.zip -d /tmp/

# Run installer (auto-detects your vaults)
/tmp/obsidian-pa/install.sh

The installer will auto-detect your Obsidian vaults and let you choose where to install.

Alternative: Manual copy

If you prefer to install manually:

1. Download obsidian-pa-X.X.X.zip from the latest release
2. Extract the obsidian-pa/ folder to <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/
3. Enable the plugin in Obsidian Settings → Community plugins

Using BRAT (Beta Testing)

If you use the BRAT plugin for beta testing:

1. Open BRAT settings
2. Click "Add Beta plugin"
3. Enter: FredrikFolkeryd/obsidian-pa

Known Limitations

This is a beta release — core features are stable but some areas are still in development:

Area	Status	Notes
Windows support	🟡 Partial	macOS/Linux focus; Windows paths less tested
Community Plugins	🔴 Pending	Not yet in official directory
Mobile	🔴 Untested	Desktop-first development
Link suggestions	🔵 Planned	AI-recommended connections
Orphan detection	🔵 Planned	Find unlinked notes

What's Working Well

As of beta.1:

• ✅ Full task automation — AI can create, modify, delete, and organise notes
• ✅ Natural language tasks — "Create a note about X" just works
• ✅ Task history with rollback — Undo entire operations
• ✅ Multi-file context — AI references multiple notes at once
• ✅ Streaming responses — Real-time output with conversation persistence
• ✅ Edit confirmations — Diff preview before any changes
• ✅ Automatic backups — Every edit is backed up

Safety Features

All write operations include:

• ✅ Confirmation dialogs — Review changes before applying
• ✅ Diff previews — See exactly what will change
• ✅ Automatic backups — Stored in .pa-backups/ folder
• ✅ One-click revert — Restore any previous version
• ✅ Audit logging — All operations logged
• ✅ Task approval — Review multi-step plans before execution

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v20 or later recommended)
• npm

Setup

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run in development mode with watch
npm run dev

# Run linting
npm run lint

# Run tests
npm run test

# Build for production
npm run build

Tech Stack

• Language: TypeScript
• Platform: Obsidian Plugin API
• Build: esbuild
• Testing: Jest/Vitest
• Linting: ESLint with TypeScript rules

Project Structure

obsidian-pa/
├── .github/
│   ├── agents/           # AI agent definitions
│   ├── workflows/        # GitHub Actions CI/CD
│   └── copilot-instructions.md
├── src/
│   ├── main.ts          # Plugin entry point
│   ├── settings.ts      # Plugin settings
│   └── agents/          # Agent implementations
├── manifest.json        # Obsidian plugin manifest
├── package.json         # Node.js dependencies
├── tsconfig.json        # TypeScript configuration
└── esbuild.config.mjs   # Build configuration

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on how to contribute to this project.

All commits must follow Conventional Commits specification to enable semantic versioning.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a detailed history of changes.

Development Values

This project follows these engineering principles:

• Simplicity: Write clear, straightforward code; avoid over-engineering
• Cost-consciousness: Optimise for performance and bundle size
• Renew and improve: Continuously refactor and improve code quality
• Give and take responsibility: Each agent owns its domain; trust but verify

Licence

MIT