Yaaiop

Yet Another AI Obsidian Plugin. Chat with an AI model about your notes, on desktop and on your phone.

The plugin is read-only. It can search and read your vault, but it never creates, edits, or deletes files.

Why it exists

There are already several AI plugins for Obsidian. This one was built around three constraints:

• It has to work on a phone. The plugin only makes HTTPS calls to a provider API. There is no MCP server to launch, no terminal, no local runtime, and no companion app, so a phone behaves the same as a laptop.
• It should reuse Smart Connections, not compete with it. If you already have that plugin, your vault is already embedded. Yaaiop asks it for search rankings, and falls back to keyword search when it isn't installed.
• A vault is more than markdown. Images and PDFs are searchable, and the model can open them.

Features

• Chat panel in the sidebar on desktop, full screen on mobile.
• The model searches your vault and opens notes on its own, then answers with [[wikilinks]] you can tap.
• Reads images and PDFs, and finds them through the text of the notes that embed them.
• Saved prompts for conversations you start often.
• Memory: it suggests things worth carrying between chats, you tap the ones to keep. Off by default.
• Chat history, so you can reopen past conversations. Can be turned off.
• Picks up a CLAUDE.md from your vault if you have one.
• Model picker with a reasoning effort dial.

Installation

Requires Obsidian 1.8.7 or later.

With BRAT, which also keeps it updated: add nicolasassi/yaaiop as a beta plugin.

Manually:

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Put them in <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/yaaiop/.
3. Enable Yaaiop in Settings → Community plugins.

Either way, open Settings → Yaaiop and paste your API key. Test connection checks it.

For mobile, sync that folder the way you already sync your vault, then enter the key again on the device.

Usage

Open the chat with the ribbon icon or the Open chat command, then ask a question. The model decides what to read.

Other commands: New chat, Start chat from saved prompt, Open a saved chat. The panel header has buttons for saved chats and for starting a new one.

Supported files

Type	What the model gets
Notes, .txt, .csv, .json, .canvas, source files	Full text
Images (png, jpg, gif, webp)	The image itself
PDFs	The document itself
Anything else	Filename, size, and the notes that reference it

Attachments are also matched on the text around them, since a filename like IMG-20260730-WA0071.jpg says nothing on its own. Images are downscaled before being sent, to keep requests small.

Memory

Off by default. Turn it on in Settings → Yaaiop → Memory.

After each reply, a small model checks whether anything is worth knowing next time — how a folder is organised, how you want answers written, a fact you'd otherwise repeat. Suggestions appear under the chat as Add to memory?; tap one to keep it, ✕ to skip, or collapse the strip to get out of the way. Nothing is kept unless you tap it.

Kept memories work like CLAUDE.md — added to the system prompt on every message, in every chat. Edit or delete them in settings, up to 50.

It costs tokens on every call, which is why it ships off: memories are re-sent with every message, and each reply triggers one extra request. They live in the plugin's data.json with your other settings, never in your notes.

Settings worth knowing

• Model and Reasoning effort control cost and answer quality.
• Search results per query and Max characters per note cap how much of your vault goes into a request.
• Max image edge trades image detail against cost.
• Extra instructions is appended to the system prompt. Use it for folder conventions the model can't guess.
• Use CLAUDE.md reads a CLAUDE.md from your vault. If yours was written for a coding agent, the model is told to follow the conventions in it and ignore instructions about tools this plugin doesn't have.

API keys

Your key is stored in Obsidian's per-device local storage, not in the plugin's data.json.

data.json lives inside the vault, so Obsidian Sync would copy your key to a server, and git-based sync would commit it, where it survives in history after you delete the file. A leaked key is billable to you until you notice.

The cost of keeping it out of the vault is that you enter the key once per device. Every other setting still syncs normally.

Local storage is not encrypted. Anything with access to your Obsidian profile can read it, so use a key scoped to this plugin and set a spend limit with your provider.

Network use

The plugin sends requests to the API of the provider you configure, and to nothing else. With the default Anthropic provider that is https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages. There is no analytics, no telemetry, and no server operated by this plugin.

Requests happen when you send a message, when you press Test connection, and — if memory is enabled — once after each reply, to work out what to suggest remembering.

Each request includes your message, the conversation so far, your vault's folder names and file counts, your extra instructions, your CLAUDE.md if enabled, your kept memories, and the contents of any file the model opens. The memory request is narrower: it sends only the last exchange and the memories you have already kept, never the vault. If a vault holds material you don't want sent to a model provider, don't point the plugin at it, and check your provider's data retention policy first.

Smart Connections runs locally, and is only asked for rankings in-process.

Roadmap

• More providers (OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter, and local runtimes like Ollama). The core is provider-neutral, so each backend is one adapter file.
• Writing to the vault, behind a confirmation step.
• Sending the active note or selection as context.
• Per-prompt model choice.
• Audio and video via transcription.
• Token usage and cost per turn.

Development

npm install
npm run dev     # watch build
npm run build   # typecheck + production build

Set VAULT_PLUGIN_DIR to build straight into a vault:

VAULT_PLUGIN_DIR="/path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/yaaiop" npm run dev

To add a provider, implement ChatProvider in src/providers/<name>.ts and register it in src/providers/index.ts.

License

MIT