Ollama Sidechat for Obsidian

A side panel chat interface for Ollama in Obsidian. Chat with local LLMs directly in your vault.

Features

• 💬 Side Panel Chat — Chat with Ollama without leaving your notes
• 📝 Note Context — Automatically includes active note content as context
• 🔎 Vault Browse — Pulls relative file lists plus linked and related note excerpts
• 🧠 Chat Memory — Keeps a rolling summary and recent turns for better recall
• 💾 Chat History — Saves conversations as searchable markdown files
• ⚡ Streaming Responses — See responses as they're generated
• 🔄 Model Switching — Switch between available models on the fly

Installation

1. Install Ollama on your system
2. Pull a model: ollama pull llama3.1
3. Copy this plugin to .obsidian/plugins/ollama-sidechat/
4. Enable the plugin in Obsidian Settings → Community Plugins

Usage

1. Click the brain icon in the ribbon (or run command "Open Ollama Chat")
2. Start Ollama on your machine (if using it locally)
3. Type your message and press Enter to send
4. Use Shift+Enter for multi-line input
5. Toggle Vault Browse to include related notes automatically
6. Enable Chat Memory to keep a rolling summary per chat

Settings

Setting	Description
Ollama URL	API endpoint (default: http://localhost:11434)
Default Model	Model to use for chat
Temperature	Response creativity (0-1)
Max Tokens	Token limit per response (-1 = unlimited)
Chat History Folder	Where to save chat files
Include Note Context	Send active note as context
Enable Vault Browsing	Include relative file listings, linked notes, and related note excerpts
Enable Chat Memory	Keep a rolling summary and recent turns for the current chat
Memory Summary Size	Max characters for the rolling summary
Recent Turns in Prompt	How many recent turns to include
Memory Summary Temperature	Controls summary stability (lower = more stable)

When Vault Browse is enabled, the plugin scans note metadata and excerpts to find related notes even if they are not explicitly linked. Chat Memory stores the rolling summary as a hidden block inside each chat file so it can be reloaded later.

Chat History

Chats are saved as markdown files organized by month:

Ollama Chats/
└── 2026-01/
    └── 2026-01-22_14-30-15_my-question.md

Each file includes YAML frontmatter with metadata and links to context notes.

Requirements

• Obsidian 0.15.0+
• Ollama installed locally

License

MIT