seekstone

seekstone / obsidian-mcp-seekstone

The MCP server that connects Claude to your Obsidian vault — filesystem-direct, no plugins, no context waste.

Seekstone is an Obsidian MCP server that gives Claude (and any Model Context Protocol client) direct read and write access to your Obsidian vault. No Obsidian app needs to be running, no plugins are required, and nothing leaves your machine.

It reads your vault directly from disk instead of routing through the Obsidian Local REST API plugin. The practical difference: a search that returns ~1.75 MB and ~459,000 tokens via the REST plugin returns ~3 KB and ~800 tokens via Seekstone — a ~575× reduction. Claude can search and read your entire note library without burning most of its context window on a single tool call.

Two npm names, one server:

Package	Best for
obsidian-mcp-seekstone	Searching npm for "obsidian mcp"
seekstone	Shorter name if you already know it

Install

Claude Desktop — claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "seekstone": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "obsidian-mcp-seekstone"],
      "env": { "SEEKSTONE_VAULT": "/absolute/path/to/your/vault" }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code:

claude mcp add seekstone --env SEEKSTONE_VAULT=/absolute/path/to/your/vault -- npx -y obsidian-mcp-seekstone

Guided setup

seekstone init validates your vault and prints the config to paste, or patches the Claude Desktop config for you (with a backup, leaving other MCP servers untouched):

npx -y obsidian-mcp-seekstone init --vault "/absolute/path/to/your/vault"          # print config
npx -y obsidian-mcp-seekstone init --vault "/absolute/path/to/your/vault" --write  # patch Claude Desktop
npx -y obsidian-mcp-seekstone init --vault "/absolute/path/to/your/vault" --client code

What can Claude do with your vault?

Once connected, ask Claude things like:

• "Search my notes for everything about [topic] and summarize" — ranked excerpts, not full files
• "Find all notes tagged #project and list their titles" — folder and tag filtering
• "Read my note on [topic] and suggest improvements" — full note content
• "Create a meeting note for today with this template" — creates note + parent dirs
• "Add a summary section to the bottom of [note]" — appends without touching frontmatter
• "Update the status field in this note's frontmatter to 'done'" — key-safe YAML edit

Tools

Tool	Description
search	Full-text search. Returns ranked ~200-char excerpts, not full notes. Fuzzy, prefix, and phrase queries.
read_note	Read the full content of a note by vault-relative path.
list_notes	List notes, optionally filtered by folder prefix or tag.
create_note	Create a note (optional frontmatter + body); parent dirs created automatically.
delete_note	Permanently delete a note.
move_note	Move/rename a note; destination dirs created automatically.
append_note	Append to a note body without touching frontmatter.
patch_frontmatter	Set/update/delete frontmatter keys without reordering existing keys or changing quote style.

Configuration

Env var	Required	Description
SEEKSTONE_VAULT	yes	Absolute path to your Obsidian vault.
SEEKSTONE_LOG_LEVEL	no	error | warn | info (default) | debug.
SEEKSTONE_LOG_FILE	no	Absolute path; when set, JSON-line logs are appended here (size-rotated).
SEEKSTONE_WATCH_POLL	no	Set to 1 to stat-poll for changes instead of native OS events — reliable on network drives, WSL, containers.

Frequently asked questions

Does the Obsidian app need to be running? No — Seekstone reads the vault folder from disk directly.

Do I need the Local REST API plugin? No — Seekstone bypasses it entirely (that's where the 575× reduction comes from).

Which AI clients does it support? Any MCP-over-stdio client: Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Continue, and others.

Does it work on Windows? Yes — tested on macOS, Linux, and Windows in CI on every commit.

Is it safe? No network calls, no telemetry. The vault path is sandboxed — no tool reads or writes outside it.

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 22
• Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows

License

MIT © Shaq Mughal. Source and issues: https://github.com/shaqmughal/seekstone