PowerShell Terminal for Obsidian

Embedded PowerShell terminal inside Obsidian. Runs on Windows via ConPTY — full keyboard support including arrows, Tab completion, PSReadLine, and Ctrl shortcuts.

Features

• Real PTY via Windows ConPTY (no projection bugs, no external window)
• Full keyboard support — arrows, Backspace, Tab, Ctrl+C, PSReadLine
• Multiple shell profiles (PowerShell, pwsh, cmd, WSL)
• Per-profile settings: startup commands, env vars, font, theme
• Auto theme following Obsidian (dark/light/auto)
• Drag-and-drop panel positioning
• {{vault}} template variable in startup commands and start directory

Requirements

• Windows 10 (build 18309+) or Windows 11
• Obsidian 1.4.0+

Installation

Manual

1. Download powershell-terminal.zip from Releases
2. Extract — you get a powershell-terminal/ folder
3. Copy it to your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory
4. In Obsidian → Settings → Community Plugins → enable PowerShell Terminal

BRAT (not supported)

BRAT is not supported because the plugin ships native binaries (node-pty) that must be placed alongside main.js.

Usage

• Click the terminal icon in the ribbon (left sidebar)
• Or Ctrl+P → Open Terminal
• Or click ⬛ Terminal in the status bar

Configuration

Settings → Plugin Options → PowerShell Terminal

Setting	Description
Shell	Path to executable (powershell.exe, pwsh.exe, cmd.exe)
Args	Launch arguments (default: -NoLogo -NoExit)
Start directory	Vault root / Home / Custom path
Startup commands	Commands sent on launch, one per line. Use {{vault}} for vault path
Env vars	KEY=VALUE pairs, one per line
Font size / family	Terminal font settings
Theme	Dark / Light / Auto (follows Obsidian)

Known Limitations

• Windows only (isDesktopOnly: true)
• No PTY programs inside the terminal (vim, ssh -t, python -i)
• WSL support requires wsl.exe as the shell path

Development

git clone https://github.com/VladPatr96/obsidian-powershell-terminal
cd obsidian-powershell-terminal
npm install
# Set VAULT_PLUGIN_DIR in esbuild.config.mjs to your vault path
npm run dev      # watch mode → auto-copies to vault
npm run build    # single build
npm run release  # packages release/powershell-terminal.zip

Architecture

xterm.js (renderer) ←→ ShellProcess ←→ node-pty (ConPTY) ←→ PowerShell

node-pty is shipped as prebuilt binaries inside the plugin package — no compilation needed.

The patches/windowsConoutConnection.js overrides node-pty's Worker-thread-based output relay with a direct named pipe connection, because Obsidian's Electron renderer disables Worker threads.

License

MIT