Obsidian Sync MCP server

Obsidian Sync MCP

<!-- mcp-name: io.github.es617/obsidian-sync-mcp -->

Give any AI agent access to your Obsidian vault over MCP. Run it locally against your vault files, or pair it with Self-hosted LiveSync and deploy to the cloud so it works even when your machine is off.

Example: From your phone, ask your AI: "What's in my daily note for today?" — and get the full content back, with a link to open it in Obsidian.

How it works

The server connects to your vault in two ways:

• Filesystem mode — reads .md files directly from your vault folder. No database needed.
• CouchDB mode — reads from a CouchDB database, locally or in the cloud. Your vault syncs to CouchDB via Self-hosted LiveSync, the community Obsidian plugin (600k+ downloads). The MCP server reads from CouchDB directly using livesync-commonlib — the same library that powers the plugin — for proper chunk handling and E2E encryption support.

Both modes expose the same MCP tools over HTTP, so any MCP-compatible agent can connect: Claude, Copilot, custom agents, anything that speaks the Model Context Protocol.

Choose your setup

A. Deploy MCP to the cloud

You already have LiveSync and CouchDB on an always-on server. You just need the MCP server deployed alongside it.

Using Fly.io setup script (macOS/Linux, or WSL on Windows):

git clone https://github.com/es617/obsidian-sync-mcp.git
cd obsidian-sync-mcp
./deploy/setup.sh    # choose option 2 (MCP only)

The script asks for your CouchDB connection details, vault name, and encryption passphrase.

Or run the Docker image on any always-on server:

docker run -p 8787:8787 \
  -v mcp-data:/data -e DATA_DIR=/data \
  -e COUCHDB_URL=https://your-couchdb:5984 \
  -e COUCHDB_USER=admin -e COUCHDB_PASSWORD=yourpassword \
  -e COUCHDB_DATABASE=obsidian -e VAULT_NAME=MyVault \
  -e COUCHDB_PASSPHRASE=your-encryption-passphrase \
  -e COUCHDB_OBFUSCATE_PROPERTIES=false \
  -e MCP_AUTH_TOKEN=yourpassword \
  -e BASE_URL=https://your-server-url \
  ghcr.io/es617/obsidian-sync-mcp:latest

Set COUCHDBPASSPHRASE if you use E2E encryption in LiveSync. Set COUCHDBOBFUSCATEPROPERTIES=true if "Obfuscate Properties" is also enabled in your LiveSync settings. For an existing vault the server detects the actual setting from the database at startup and corrects a mismatch with a warning; only for a brand-new empty database does the value need to match your LiveSync settings. Set BASEURL to your public URL (required for OAuth callbacks when agents connect over HTTPS).

Your MCP endpoint is https://your-app.fly.dev/mcp (Fly.io) or https://your-server:8787/mcp (Docker behind HTTPS).

See Cost for Fly.io pricing.

Requires flyctl for the Fly.io path:

curl -L https://fly.io/install.sh | sh
export PATH="$HOME/.fly/bin:$PATH"  # add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc
fly auth login

B. Deploy everything to the cloud

Starting fresh — no LiveSync yet. Deploy CouchDB and MCP together, then set up LiveSync in Obsidian.

Using Fly.io setup script (macOS/Linux, or WSL on Windows):

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.