Claudian

An Obsidian plugin that embeds AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, and more to come) in your vault. Your vault becomes the agent's working directory — file read/write, search, bash, and multi-step workflows all work out of the box.

Features & Usage

Open the chat sidebar from the ribbon icon or command palette. Select text and use the hotkey for inline edit. Everything works like Claude Code or Codex — talk to the agent, and it reads, writes, edits, and searches files in your vault.

Inline Edit — Select text or start at the cursor position + hotkey to edit directly in notes with word-level diff preview.

Slash Commands & Skills — Type / or $ for reusable prompt templates or Skills from user- and vault-level scopes.

@mention - Type @ to mention anything you want the agent to work with, vault files, subagents, MCP servers, or files in external directories.

Plan Mode — Toggle via Shift+Tab. The agent explores and designs before implementing, then presents a plan for approval.

Instruction Mode (#) — Refined custom instructions added from the chat input.

MCP Servers — Connect external tools via Model Context Protocol (stdio, SSE, HTTP). Claude manages vault MCP in-app; Codex uses its own CLI-managed MCP configuration.

Multi-Tab & Conversations — Multiple chat tabs, conversation history, fork, resume, and compact.

Requirements

• Claude provider: Claude Code CLI installed (native install recommended). Claude subscription/API or compatible provider (Openrouter, Kimi, etc.).
• Codex provider (optional): Codex CLI installed.
• Obsidian v1.4.5+
• Desktop only (macOS, Linux, Windows)

Installation

From GitHub Release (recommended)

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
2. Create a folder called claudian in your vault's plugins folder:

   /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/claudian/
   

3. Copy the downloaded files into the claudian folder
4. Enable the plugin in Obsidian:
   • Settings → Community plugins → Enable "Claudian"

Using BRAT

BRAT (Beta Reviewers Auto-update Tester) allows you to install and automatically update plugins directly from GitHub.

1. Install the BRAT plugin from Obsidian Community Plugins
2. Enable BRAT in Settings → Community plugins
3. Open BRAT settings and click "Add Beta plugin"
4. Enter the repository URL: https://github.com/YishenTu/claudian
5. Click "Add Plugin" and BRAT will install Claudian automatically
6. Enable Claudian in Settings → Community plugins

Tip: BRAT will automatically check for updates and notify you when a new version is available.

From source (development)

1. Clone this repository into your vault's plugins folder:

   cd /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins
   git clone https://github.com/YishenTu/claudian.git
   cd claudian
   

2. Install dependencies and build:

   npm install
   npm run build
   

3. Enable the plugin in Obsidian:

   • Settings → Community plugins → Enable "Claudian"

Development

# Watch mode
npm run dev

# Production build
npm run build

Tip: Copy .env.local.example to .env.local or npm install and setup your vault path to auto-copy files during development.

Privacy & Data Use

• Sent to API: Your input, attached files, images, and tool call outputs. Default: Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI (Codex); configurable via environment variables.
• Local storage: Claudian settings and session metadata in vault/.claudian/; Claude provider files in vault/.claude/; transcripts in ~/.claude/projects/ (Claude) and ~/.codex/sessions/ (Codex).
• No telemetry: No tracking beyond your configured API provider.

Troubleshooting

Claude CLI not found

If you encounter spawn claude ENOENT or Claude CLI not found, the plugin can't auto-detect your Claude installation. Common with Node version managers (nvm, fnm, volta).

Solution: Find your CLI path and set it in Settings → Advanced → Claude CLI path.

| Platform | Command | Example Path | |----------|---------|--------------| | macOS/Linux | which claude | /Users/you/.volta/bin/claude | | Windows (native) | where.exe claude | C:\Users\you\AppData\Local\Claude\claude.exe | | Windows (npm) | npm root -g | {root}\@anthropic-ai\claude-code\cli.js |

Note: On Windows, avoid .cmd wrappers. Use claude.exe or cli.js.

Alternative: Add your Node.js bin directory to PATH in Settings → Environment → Custom variables.

npm CLI and Node.js not in same directory

If using npm-installed CLI, check if claude and node are in the same directory:

dirname $(which claude)
dirname $(which node)

If different, GUI apps like Obsidian may not find Node.js.

Solutions:

1. Install native binary (recommended)
2. Add Node.js path to Settings → Environment: PATH=/path/to/node/bin

Codex provider

Codex support is live but still needs more testing across platforms and installation methods. If you run into any bugs, please submit a GitHub issue.

Architecture

src/
├── main.ts                      # Plugin entry point
├── app/                         # Shared defaults and plugin-level storage
├── core/                        # Provider-neutral runtime, registry, and type contracts
│   ├── runtime/                 # ChatRuntime interface and approval types
│   ├── providers/               # Provider registry and workspace services
│   ├── security/                # Approval utilities
│   └── ...                      # commands, mcp, prompt, storage, tools, types
├── providers/
│   ├── claude/                  # Claude SDK adaptor, prompt encoding, storage, MCP, plugins
│   └── codex/                   # Codex app-server adaptor, JSON-RPC transport, JSONL history
├── features/
│   ├── chat/                    # Sidebar chat: tabs, controllers, renderers
│   ├── inline-edit/             # Inline edit modal and provider-backed edit services
│   └── settings/                # Settings shell with provider tabs
├── shared/                      # Reusable UI components and modals
├── i18n/                        # Internationalization (10 locales)
├── utils/                       # Cross-cutting utilities
└── style/                       # Modular CSS

Roadmap

• [x] 1M Opus and Sonnet models
• [x] Codex provider integration
• [ ] More to come!

License

Licensed under the MIT License.

Star History

Acknowledgments

• Obsidian for the plugin API
• Anthropic for Claude and the Claude Agent SDK
• OpenAI for Codex