# Vaultkeeper AI for Obsidian > A powerful AI assistant plugin that brings Claude, Gemini, OpenAI, and Mistral directly into your Obsidian vault with intelligent note management capabilities. [![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg)](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT) [![Obsidian Plugin](https://img.shields.io/badge/Obsidian-Plugin-purple.svg)](https://obsidian.md)

vaultkeeper-social-1280x640

## Features - **Multi-Provider AI Support** - Switch seamlessly between Claude (Anthropic), Gemini (Google), OpenAI, and Mistral models - **Three Chat Modes** - 🔍 **Read-Only Mode**: AI can search, read, and list your notes safely - ✏️ **Edit Mode**: AI can create, edit, delete, and move notes and folders (when you need it) - 📋 **Planning Mode**: A three-agent workflow where a planning agent analyzes your vault and creates a step-by-step strategy before execution - **Interactive Diff Viewer** - Review and approve AI-proposed changes before they're applied with side-by-side diff view - **Smart Reference System** - Mention tags (`#`), files (`@`), and folders (`/`) with autocomplete - **Custom System Instructions** - Create and switch between personalized AI behaviors - **Conversation Management** - Persistent chat history with automatic conversation naming - **Privacy Controls** - Exclude sensitive files and directories from AI access with glob patterns - **Files Support (PDF, Documents, Images, etc)** - Search through PDF and Office documents (DOCX, PPTX, XLSX) and allow AI to read binary files directly (PDFs, Office/ODF documents, images, etc) - **AI Memory** - Persist vault conventions, preferences, and workflows across sessions so the AI remembers how you work - **Web Search** - Toggle web search on per-message so the AI can look up current information - **Web Viewer** - Allow the AI to fetch and read web page content directly - **Quick Actions** - Lightweight, single-shot AI operations on selected text, available via right-click context menu and a dedicated editor toolbar button — both toggleable in settings and fully supported on mobile - **Mobile Compatible** - Full functionality on mobile devices with touch-friendly controls - **Streaming Responses** - See AI responses as they're generated - **Local & Private** - API keys stored locally, no data sent to third parties ## Installation ### Manual Installation 1. Download the latest release from the [Releases page](https://github.com/andy-stack/vaultkeeper-ai/releases) 2. Extract the files into your vault's `.obsidian/plugins/vaultkeeper-ai/` directory 3. Reload Obsidian 4. Enable "Vaultkeeper AI" in Settings → Community Plugins ### From Community Plugins 1. Open Obsidian Settings 2. Navigate to Community Plugins 3. Search for "Vaultkeeper AI" 4. Click Install, then Enable ## Quick Start 1. **Add API Keys**: Open plugin settings and add at least one API key: - **Claude**: Get from [Anthropic Console](https://console.anthropic.com/) - **Gemini**: Get from [Google AI Studio](https://aistudio.google.com/) - **OpenAI**: Get from [OpenAI Platform](https://platform.openai.com/) - **Mistral**: Get from [Mistral Console](https://console.mistral.ai/) 2. **Select a Model**: Choose your preferred AI model from the dropdown 3. **Start Chatting**: Click the Vaultkeeper AI icon in the left sidebar to open the chat window 4. **Try the Reference System**: - Type `@` to reference files - Type `#` to reference tags - Type `/` to reference folders ## Usage ### Switching Between Models The plugin supports multiple AI models: **Claude (Anthropic)** - Claude Sonnet 4.6 ⚡ (Recommended) - Claude Sonnet 4.5, 4 - Claude Opus 4.6, 4.5, 4.1, 4 - Claude Haiku 4.5 **Gemini (Google)** - Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, 3 Pro Preview, 3 Flash Preview - Gemini 2.5 Flash, Pro - Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite **OpenAI** - GPT-5.2 (Instant, Thinking, Pro) - GPT-5.1, GPT-5 (Mini, Nano) **Mistral** - Mistral Large - Mistral Medium - Mistral Small Switch models anytime in the settings without losing your conversation context. ### Chat Modes The chat mode selector in the input toolbar lets you switch between three modes at any time. **Read-Only Mode (Default)** 🔍 - AI can search vault content (text based files, PDFs, and Office/ODF documents) - AI can read file contents (including binary files like PDFs, Office documents, and images) - AI can list directory structures - **Cannot** modify your notes **Edit Mode** ✏️ Switch to Edit Mode when you need the AI to: - Create new notes - Edit existing content - Delete files - Move/rename files and folders - Create and delete folders **Planning Mode** 📋 Switch to Planning Mode for complex, multi-step tasks. See the [Planning Mode](#planning-mode-1) section below for full details. ### Interactive Diff Viewer When the AI proposes changes to your files in Agent Mode, an interactive diff viewer appears that lets you: - **Review Changes**: See a side-by-side comparison of the current file and proposed changes - **Approve or Reject**: Accept the changes to apply them, or reject to cancel - **Provide Feedback**: Suggest modifications before accepting by typing your feedback and clicking the suggestion button - **Mobile Support**: Touch-friendly Accept/Reject buttons on mobile devices The diff viewer ensures you're always in control of what changes are made to your vault, providing transparency and safety when working with AI-generated edits. ### Planning Mode Planning Mode introduces a three-agent workflow that separates task planning, orchestration, and execution. When enabled, specialized agents collaborate to analyze your vault, create a detailed strategy, and execute changes with intelligent oversight between each step. **How It Works** 1. **Enable Planning Mode**: Click the planning mode button in the chat input toolbar (list icon) 2. **Submit Your Request**: Send your message as normal 3. **Planning Phase**: The planning agent analyzes your vault, exploring existing notes, organizational patterns, and relevant content 4. **Clarifying Questions**: The planning agent may ask you questions to better understand your requirements 5. **Plan Display**: A step-by-step plan appears above the chat showing what will be done 6. **Execution Phase**: For each step, an execution agent performs the task while an orchestration agent monitors progress and decides whether to continue, adapt, or replan 7. **Completion**: All steps are marked complete when finished **The Three Agents** - **Planning Agent**: Explores your vault (read-only) and creates the execution strategy. Can search files, read content, and ask clarifying questions, but cannot modify anything. - **Execution Agent**: Performs individual steps from the plan. Has full access to vault operations (when in Agent Mode) and completes each task independently. - **Orchestration Agent**: Monitors progress between steps. After each step completes, it evaluates the result and decides whether to continue to the next step, request a replan, or abort the workflow. It can also pass context to subsequent steps based on what was learned. **Plan Visualization** - Steps display in a collapsible panel above the chat - Status indicators show progress: pending, active (with spinner), or completed (green checkmark) - The view auto-scrolls to keep the active step visible - Expand/collapse to see the full plan or a compact view **When to Use Planning Mode** Planning mode is especially useful for: - Complex multi-step tasks requiring vault exploration - Comprehensive changes across multiple files - Research tasks needing deep vault analysis - Tasks where you want to review the approach before execution - Uncertain requirements where clarifying questions help **Replanning** If issues arise during execution, the orchestration agent can request a replan. This returns to the planning phase with full context about what's already been completed and what went wrong, allowing the plan to intelligently adapt to new information discovered during execution. ### Quick Actions Quick Actions are one-click AI edits you run on the note you're currently editing, without opening the chat panel. Open the editor menu (right-click, or the command palette) and pick an action. Some actions work on your current selection if you have text selected, otherwise they apply to the whole note. They're available in two ways: - **Right-click context menu** — select text in any markdown note and choose a Quick Action from the context menu - **Editor toolbar button** — a dedicated button appears in the editor header for one-click access Both entry points are individually toggleable in Settings and are fully supported on mobile. **Available actions** - **Proofread** — Corrects spelling, grammar, punctuation, and typos without rewriting for style or changing your voice. Works on the selection if you have one, otherwise the whole note. - **Beautify** — Improves clarity, flow, and readability and adds Markdown formatting (headings, bold, lists, blockquotes) where it helps. Works on the selection if you have one, otherwise the whole note. - **Apply template** — Restructures the note to match a template you choose, fitting your content to the template's headings and structure while preserving the information. If the file you pick doesn't look like a template, no changes are made. - **Apply links** — Scans the note for mentions of pages that already exist in your vault and wraps them in wikilinks. It only links existing pages and never invents new ones. Works on the selection if you have one, otherwise the whole note. - **Apply tags** — Chooses tags for the note from the tags that already exist in your vault and merges them into the frontmatter. It won't create new tags — only ones already in use elsewhere. - **Suggest tags** — Like Apply tags, but free to suggest new tags as well as reuse existing ones. Suggested tags are merged into the note's frontmatter. - **Generate frontmatter** — Infers YAML frontmatter for the note (aliases, tags, title, summary, created) from its content and merges it into any existing frontmatter. ### AI Memory The AI can retain information across conversation sessions — your vault conventions, tagging patterns, personal preferences, or any established workflows you've described. **How It Works** Memories are stored in a plain markdown file at `Vaultkeeper AI/memories.md`. The AI reads this at the start of each conversation and can update it during a session. You can view and edit this file directly at any time. **Settings** - **Enable Memories**: Toggle memory on or off entirely - **Read-Only Memories**: The AI can recall past memories but cannot add or update them — useful if you want to manage the file yourself ### Web Search Toggle web search on a per-message basis using the globe button in the chat input toolbar. When active, the AI can perform live web searches to answer questions requiring current or external information. Web search is supported on all four providers. Mistral uses its native Agents API for search; Claude, Gemini, and OpenAI use their respective built-in search tools. You can also disable web search access entirely from Settings if you prefer the AI to stay within your vault. ### Web Viewer When enabled, the AI can fetch and read the content of web pages — useful for summarising articles, pulling in documentation, or referencing any URL you share. Web viewer access can be toggled on or off in Settings. ### Reference System Quickly provide context to the AI using the reference system: **Files** - Type `@` followed by the filename: ``` @meeting-notes What action items did we discuss? ``` **Tags** - Type `#` to reference tagged notes: ``` #project/alpha Show me all notes about project alpha ``` **Folders** - Type `/` to reference entire directories: ``` /Daily Notes Summarize this week's daily notes ``` The autocomplete dropdown appears automatically and supports: - Fuzzy search (type partial names) - Keyboard navigation (↑↓ arrows) - Visual preview with full paths ### Custom System Instructions Customize the AI's behavior with system instructions: 1. Create markdown files in `Vaultkeeper AI/User Instructions/` 2. Click the "User Instructions" button in the chat 3. Select your custom instruction set 4. The AI will follow these instructions for all interactions Example use cases: - Research assistant mode - Creative writing partner - Code documentation helper - Academic note-taker See `EXAMPLE_INSTRUCTIONS.md` in your vault for a template. ### Conversation History - All conversations are automatically saved - Click the history icon to browse past conversations - Conversations are automatically named by AI based on content - Stored in `Vaultkeeper AI/Conversations/` as JSON files ## Configuration ### Settings **API Keys** - Add keys for Claude, Gemini, OpenAI, or Mistral - Keys stored locally in your vault - Never transmitted except to respective AI providers **Model Selection** - Choose from 15+ supported models - Switch anytime without conversation loss **Planning Model** - Select a separate model for the planning agent (used in Planning Mode) - Default: Claude Sonnet 4.6 - Allows cost optimization by using a more capable model for planning and a faster/cheaper model for execution - The planning model dropdown updates to match your selected provider **Memory** - **Enable Memories**: Allow the AI to read and update a persistent memory file (`Vaultkeeper AI/memories.md`) across sessions - **Read-Only Memories**: The AI can read memories but cannot modify them **Web Access** - **Enable Web Search**: Allow the AI to perform live web searches (can also be toggled per-message in the chat toolbar) - **Enable Web Viewer**: Allow the AI to fetch and read web page content **Search Configuration** Fine-tune the balance between request size and agent performance: - **Search Results Limit** (default: 15) - Controls the maximum number of files returned in search operations - Lower values (5-10): Faster searches and reduced API costs - Higher values (20-30): Provide more context, potentially improving agent performance - Adjust based on your vault size and typical query complexity - **Snippet Size Limit** (default: 300 characters) - Sets the character limit for contextual snippets in search results - Lower values (100-200): Reduce request size for cost-conscious users - Higher values (400-600): Give the AI more context to understand file relevance - Balance between providing enough context and controlling costs **File Exclusions** Protect your privacy by preventing the AI from accessing sensitive files or directories: - **How it works**: Exclusions apply to all AI operations in both read-only and agent modes - **Use glob patterns** to specify what to exclude: - `private/**` - Exclude entire directories (all files in "private" folder) - `*.secret.md` - Exclude specific file patterns (any file ending in .secret.md) - `journal/personal/**` - Exclude nested directories - `.obsidian/workspace.json` - Exclude specific configuration files - **Common use cases**: - Personal journals or diary entries - Financial information - Work-related confidential notes - API keys or credentials stored in notes - Draft content you don't want analyzed - **Privacy guarantee**: Excluded files are completely inaccessible to the AI - they won't appear in searches, can't be read, and can't be modified even in agent mode **Custom Instructions Path** - Customize where instruction files are stored - Default: `Vaultkeeper AI/User Instructions/` ## Development ### Prerequisites - Node.js v16 or higher - npm - Obsidian (for testing) ### Setup ```bash # Clone into your vault's plugin directory cd /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/ git clone https://github.com/andy-stack/vaultkeeper-ai.git cd vaultkeeper-ai # Install dependencies npm install # Build for development (with watch mode) npm run dev # Build for production npm run build ``` ### Testing The project uses Vitest for testing: ```bash # Run all tests npm test ``` ## Contributing I'm currently **not accepting contributions** (pull requests are disabled), but bug reports and suggestions via [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/andy-stack/vaultkeeper-ai/issues) are always welcome. See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) for details. ## Privacy & Security - **API Keys**: Stored locally in your Obsidian vault, never transmitted to third parties - **No External Servers**: Direct communication with AI providers only - **File Exclusions**: Protect sensitive information by excluding individual files or entire directories from AI access using glob patterns - excluded files are completely inaccessible in both read-only and agent modes - **Local Storage**: All conversations and settings stored in your vault - **Open Source**: Fully auditable codebase ## License This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for details. ## Support - **Issues**: Report bugs or request features on [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/andy-stack/vaultkeeper-ai/issues) ## Acknowledgments This plugin is built on the shoulders of many excellent projects: **Platform & AI** - Built for [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md) - Powered by [Anthropic Claude](https://anthropic.com), [Google Gemini](https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini/), [OpenAI](https://openai.com), and [Mistral AI](https://mistral.ai) - Official SDKs: [@anthropic-ai/sdk](https://github.com/anthropics/anthropic-sdk-typescript), [@google/genai](https://github.com/google/generative-ai-js), [openai](https://github.com/openai/openai-node) **Document Processing** - [unpdf](https://github.com/unjs/unpdf) - PDF parsing and text extraction - [officeparser](https://github.com/nicktomlin/officeparser) - Office document parsing (DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, ODT, ODP, ODS) **UI Framework** - [Svelte](https://svelte.dev) - Reactive UI components - [svelte-exmarkdown](https://github.com/ssssota/svelte-exmarkdown) - Markdown rendering for Svelte **Markdown Processing** - [unified](https://unifiedjs.com/) - Markdown processing pipeline - [remark](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark) - Markdown parser and compiler - [rehype](https://github.com/rehypejs/rehype) - HTML processor - [remark-gfm](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark-gfm) - GitHub Flavored Markdown support - [remark-wiki-link](https://github.com/landakram/remark-wiki-link) - Obsidian-style wiki links **Rich Content Rendering** - [KaTeX](https://katex.org/) - Mathematical notation rendering - [Shiki](https://shiki.style/) - Modern syntax highlighting - [rehype-sanitize](https://github.com/rehypejs/rehype-sanitize) - HTML sanitization for security **Diff & Code Review** - [diff](https://github.com/kpdecker/jsdiff) - Text diffing library for change detection - [diff2html](https://github.com/rtfpessoa/diff2html) - Beautiful side-by-side diff viewer **Utilities** - [fuzzysort](https://github.com/farzher/fuzzysort) - Fuzzy search for reference autocomplete - [Zod](https://github.com/colinhacks/zod) - TypeScript-first schema validation - [regex-parser](https://github.com/IonicaBizau/regex-parser.js) - Parses a string as regular expression **Development** - [Vitest](https://vitest.dev/) - Fast unit testing framework - [esbuild](https://esbuild.github.io/) - Lightning-fast bundler - [TypeScript](https://www.typescriptlang.org/) - Type-safe development **CSS** - [Loader](https://uiverse.io/Li-Deheng/bright-firefox-37) - Animated streaming indicator adapted from original by Li-Deheng - [Gradient Border](https://codepen.io/alphardex/pen/vYEYGzp) - Animated border adapted from original by alphardex - [Gradient Spinner](https://codepen.io/AlexWarnes/pen/jXYYKL) - Animated spinner adapted from original by AlexWarnes --- **Note**: This plugin requires API keys from AI providers. API usage is billed by the respective providers according to their pricing. Monitor your usage through provider dashboards.