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OpenClaw + Obsidian Setup

Make your Obsidian vault a living knowledge base your AI agent can read, search, and write to. OpenClaw connects to your local vault through the obsidian skill, enabling natural language queries across your notes, automatic daily summaries, and AI-assisted knowledge organization — all from your messaging apps.

OpenClaw guide · Updated 2026 · Practical setup steps

What You Need

An Obsidian vault on the same machine where OpenClaw runs (or accessible via a synced folder), and a running OpenClaw gateway. The obsidian skill operates directly on Markdown files — Obsidian does not need to be open for the agent to read and write notes.

Step 1: Install the Obsidian Skill

clawhub install obsidian

The skill scans .md files in your vault, extracts headings, tags, frontmatter, and content, and builds a searchable index. It requires filesystem access to your vault directory.

Step 2: Configure the Vault Path

Set the path in your openclaw.json or via environment variable:

{
  "skills": {
    "entries": {
      "obsidian": {
        "enabled": true,
        "config": {
          "vaultPath": "~/Documents/Obsidian/MyVault"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

If OpenClaw runs in Docker, bind-mount your vault directory into the container. The vault must be readable and writable by the OpenClaw process.

Restart: openclaw gateway restart.

Step 3: Add Context to TOOLS.md

## Obsidian
- Vault: ~/Documents/Obsidian/MyVault
- Structure: Projects/, Daily/, Meetings/, Resources/, Archive/
- Naming: daily notes = YYYY-MM-DD.md in Daily/
- Tags: #project, #meeting, #idea, #todo, #review
- Use [[wikilinks]] for internal links
- Never delete notes — move to Archive/ instead
- When saving conversation insights, use Daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md

Step 4: Two-Way Obsidian Plugin (Optional)

For chatting with your agent from inside Obsidian itself, install the ObsidianClaw community plugin. In Obsidian, go to Settings → Community Plugins → Browse → search "ObsidianClaw". The plugin connects to your OpenClaw gateway via WebSocket and provides an in-vault chat panel. It requires pairing approval on first connect: run openclaw devices approve <requestId> on your gateway machine.

Example Commands

From Telegram, WhatsApp, or the Obsidian plugin:

Automate with Cron

# Daily summary — every evening at 8pm
openclaw cron add \
  --name "Obsidian daily summary" \
  --cron "0 20 * * *" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Read today's Obsidian daily note. Summarize key decisions, open todos, and insights. If nothing noteworthy, say so briefly." \
  --announce --channel telegram

# Weekly knowledge review — Sunday 10am
openclaw cron add \
  --name "Weekly vault review" \
  --cron "0 10 * * 0" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Scan my Obsidian vault for notes modified this week. List the top 5 by content volume with a one-line summary of each. Identify any orphan notes (no backlinks) that might need connecting." \
  --announce --channel whatsapp

Tips

The key limitation is that the agent cannot ingest your entire vault in one context window. Well-structured notes with clear headings, tags, and frontmatter dramatically improve retrieval quality. If your vault is large (1000+ notes), keep folders organized and use tags consistently so the vector search finds relevant content.

Obsidian operates on local files, so it only works when OpenClaw runs on the same machine as your vault (or has network access to a synced folder). If your OpenClaw instance runs on a remote VPS but your vault is on your Mac, consider using Notion instead — it is cloud-based and works from anywhere. Alternatively, sync your vault to the VPS using Syncthing or rsync.

For persistent memory across sessions, combine the obsidian skill with Mem0. Use Obsidian for structured knowledge (projects, meetings, references) and Mem0 for conversational memory (preferences, facts, context). They serve different purposes and complement each other well.

Recommended Next Steps