Link Forge

An Obsidian plugin that automatically creates pages from unresolved wikilinks when you move to a new line. No clicks, no modals, no interruptions.

What it does

You type [[People/Johnny Appleseed]] in a note. You press Enter. Link Forge:

1. Detects the unresolved wikilink on the line you just left
2. Creates People/Johnny Appleseed.md (and any missing parent folders)
3. Shortens the link to [[Johnny Appleseed]] (if it resolves uniquely)

All silently, in the background, while you keep writing.

Features

• Line-change detection — uses CodeMirror 6 EditorView.updateListener to process links only when you leave a line (not on every keystroke)
• Watched folders — only auto-creates for links targeting configured folders (empty by default = all folders)
• Folder creation — automatically creates missing parent directories
• Templater compatible — works with Templater's built-in "Trigger on file creation" for automatic folder templates
• Link shortening — rewrites [[Folder/Name]] to [[Name]] when the basename resolves uniquely
• Heading + alias preservation — [[People/Name#Bio|Their Bio]] shortens to [[Name#Bio|Their Bio]]

Installation

From Community Plugins

1. Open Obsidian Settings → Community Plugins
2. Search for "Link Forge"
3. Install and enable

Manual Installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
2. Create folder: <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/link-forge/
3. Copy the downloaded files into that folder
4. Reload Obsidian and enable "Link Forge" in Settings → Community Plugins

Verify Release Integrity

Every release is built in GitHub Actions with build provenance attestation. You can verify any artifact:

gh attestation verify main.js --repo philpalmieri/obsidian-link-forge

This proves the artifact was built from this repo's source code in CI, not locally tampered with.

Configuration

Open Settings → Link Forge:

Setting	Default	Description
Enabled	true	Global toggle
Watched folders	(empty)	Only auto-create for links targeting these folders (comma-separated). Empty = all folders.
Shorten links after creation	true	Rewrite to shortest unique path after file exists

Templater compatibility

Link Forge works seamlessly with Templater. When Link Forge creates a new file, Templater's built-in "Trigger on file creation" feature automatically applies your configured folder templates. No additional configuration needed in Link Forge; just set up your folder templates in Templater's settings as usual.

How it works

Link Forge registers a CodeMirror 6 editor extension that fires when the cursor moves to a different line. When you leave a line:

1. The plugin extracts all [[wikilinks]] from that line
2. Filters to links targeting watched folders
3. Checks each against metadataCache.getFirstLinkpathDest() to see if the file exists
4. Creates missing files (with parent folders) via vault.create()
5. Optionally shortens the link text

This means it only activates on line changes (Enter, arrow keys, mouse click to another line), not on every keystroke.

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install --legacy-peer-deps

# Watch mode (rebuilds on change)
npm run dev

# Run tests
npm test

# Lint
npm run lint

# Typecheck
npm run typecheck

# Production build
npm run build

Local testing

Symlink into your vault for live development:

ln -s /path/to/obsidian-link-forge/main.js <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/link-forge/main.js
ln -s /path/to/obsidian-link-forge/manifest.json <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/link-forge/manifest.json

Reload Obsidian with Cmd+R. Open the dev console with Cmd+Option+I to see [Link Forge] log messages.

Release process

1. Bump version in manifest.json and package.json
2. Update versions.json with the new version → minimum Obsidian version mapping
3. Commit and tag: git tag <version> (e.g. 1.0.3)
4. Push: git push origin main --tags
5. CI validates, builds, attests, and creates the GitHub Release automatically

Supply chain security

This plugin uses GitHub Artifact Attestations powered by Sigstore to provide verifiable build provenance for every release. This means:

• Every main.js in a release is cryptographically tied to a specific source commit
• The build happened in GitHub Actions, not on a developer's local machine
• Anyone can independently verify this with gh attestation verify

The Obsidian community plugin ecosystem currently has no verification mechanism for plugin builds. This is a small step toward supply chain security best practices, built by someone who works on these problems professionally.

License

MIT