Obsidian Integration

The idea

Obsidian is a note-taking app where your notes are just files on your computer. This makes it perfect for Claude — your notes become context Claude can read, search, and work with.

The setup:

• Your Obsidian vault is a folder of markdown files
• CLAUDE.md in the vault tells Claude how it’s organized
• Claude can read and write to your notes directly

A simple setup

Your vault might look like:

my-notes/
├── CLAUDE.md              # Context for Claude
├── Journal/               # Daily entries
├── Projects/              # Project notes and plans
├── Reference/             # Saved articles, research
└── Ideas/                 # Loose thoughts

And your CLAUDE.md:

# My Notes

## Structure

- `Journal/` — Daily entries, named YYYY-MM-DD.md
- `Projects/` — One folder per project
- `Reference/` — Research and saved articles
- `Ideas/` — Quick captures, things to develop

## Conventions

- Use [[wikilinks]] for internal links
- Keep filenames lowercase with dashes

## When working here

- Don't delete files, move them to Archive/ instead
- Ask before reorganizing anything

Now Claude understands your system.

What you can do

Search your notes: “Find all my notes that mention vacation planning.”

Organize content: “Move all the loose notes in Ideas/ into appropriate project folders.”

Create from templates: “Create a new project folder for ‘Kitchen Renovation’ with a plan.md.”

Process brain dumps: “Go through today’s journal entry and pull out any tasks into my todo list.”

Delegation with @claude

You can create a pattern where tagging items with @claude delegates work automatically.

- [ ] Research best budget apps @claude
- [ ] Draft reply to mom's email @claude

This works by adding instructions to your CLAUDE.md:

## @claude Delegation

When you see items tagged with `@claude`:
1. Do the work (research, draft, etc.)
2. Put results in `Output/`
3. Mark the original item as done

Claude reads these instructions and knows how to handle the tags. You can customize the behavior however you want — where outputs go, what “done” means, whether to ask before acting.

The brain dump workflow

Capture messy thoughts on your phone → sync to Obsidian → Claude processes them.

1. Capture: Quick notes sync to Journal/Dump-DDMM.md
2. Process: Claude consolidates into organized notes
3. Review: You check what Claude found, answer questions
4. Connect: Link ideas to existing projects

Turns scattered captures into structured, findable content.

For developers

The same patterns work for development notes and planning:

Vault structure for dev work

obsidian-vault/
├── CLAUDE.md
├── Home.md                # Dashboard with project status
├── Projects/              # Project plans and docs
│   ├── MyApp/
│   │   └── plan.md
│   └── OnHold/
├── System/                # Workflow documentation
└── Life/                  # Personal notes, separate from code

Connecting vault to code

Plans live in Obsidian. Code lives in separate repos. They reference each other:

# In Obsidian: Projects/MyApp/plan.md

**Repo:** ~/dev/my-app

# In repo: CLAUDE.md

**Plan:** See ~/notes/Projects/MyApp/plan.md

Git sync

Sync your vault between machines via git:

# Auto-commit with obsidian-git plugin or cron
# Pull on other machines before working

Claude can read and write to the vault, with changes versioned and reviewable. If you want Claude to work on your vault autonomously, see the Sandbox Setup guide for isolated environments.

Project lifecycle

Creating a project:

1. Create Projects/<Name>/plan.md with full plan
2. Add to Home.md
3. When coding starts: create GitHub repo

Putting on hold:

1. Move folder to Projects/OnHold/
2. Update Home.md

Completing:

1. Add status to plan.md: ## Status: COMPLETE
2. Move to Archive/

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Official Documentation

• Obsidian — Official Obsidian documentation and help center