mcpbeat Sign in

Obsidian Semantic Search MCP Server

local only

Obsidian Semantic Search runs on your own machine — the client starts it, so there is no endpoint to ping. 93 installs a week from npm. Last commit 6 Aug 2026.

Read-only semantic search MCP server for Obsidian vaults using local Ollama embeddings.

Installs per day peak 76 · avg 18 · +92% w/w
a month agotoday
93
Installs / week
npm · @dalecb/obsidian-semantic-mcp
1
Stars
0 open issues
6 Aug 2026
Last commit
0 releases in 90 days
MIT
License
JavaScript

Nothing serious here today

Today is the operative word: we check Obsidian Semantic Search every 15 minutes and re-read its code on every release. Watch it and you find out the day that stops being true.

Three servers free · no card

Connect this server

This server runs on your own machine — install it with the package manager and the client starts it for you. Package name taken from the official registry entry.

run in your terminal
claude mcp add obsidian-semantic-mcp -- npx -y @dalecb/obsidian-semantic-mcp
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian-semantic-mcp": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@dalecb/obsidian-semantic-mcp"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}
~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.obsidian-semantic-mcp]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@dalecb/obsidian-semantic-mcp"]
.cursor/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian-semantic-mcp": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@dalecb/obsidian-semantic-mcp"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}
.vscode/mcp.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "obsidian-semantic-mcp": {
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@dalecb/obsidian-semantic-mcp"
      ],
      "command": "npx"
    }
  }
}

This one needs environment variables set before it will start: OBSIDIAN_VAULT_ROOT (Absolute path to the local Obsidian vault.), OBSIDIAN_SEMANTIC_MCP_HOME (Directory for the external SQLite index, logs, and cache.), OBSIDIAN_EMBED_MODEL (Ollama embedding model name. Defaults to bge-m3.), OLLAMA_BASE_URL (Ollama API base URL. Defaults to http://localhost:11434.), OBSIDIAN_SEMANTIC_STARTUP_INDEX (Set to true to run incremental indexing when the server starts.), OBSIDIAN_SEMANTIC_ALLOW_SENSITIVE (Set to true to allow include_sensitive tool calls.), OBSIDIAN_SEMANTIC_EXCLUDE (Comma- or newline-separated folders to always exclude from indexing, search, and read.), OBSIDIAN_SEMANTIC_SENSITIVE_PATHS (Comma- or newline-separated folders treated as sensitive (blocked unless unlocked). Defaults to 08_PersonalInfo/.). The author declared them in the registry entry; get the values from the project itself.

Alternatives to Obsidian Semantic Search

same job, measured the same way
Smart Connections
by gogogadgetbytes

MCP server for Obsidian Smart Connections. Semantic search using your vault's embeddings.

29 installs/wk local only
Smart Connections MCP
by msdanyg

Local semantic search over Obsidian vaults via Smart Connections embeddings. Multi-vault, private.

87 installs/wk local only
Embgrep
by arknill

Local semantic search — embedding-powered grep for files, zero external services.

67 installs/wk local only
Palace
by ancientice

Local-first memory for coding agents — MCP server, single SQLite file, local embeddings

local only
Grok Chat
by codechap

MCP server for the xAI Grok API — chat, vision, search, and embeddings

local only
Nvidia Nim MCP
by david-eve-za

MCP server for NVIDIA NIM - 50+ LLMs, multimodal, image gen, embeddings, reranking

56 installs/wk local only
memex
by ayushagrawal288

Persistent memory for AI agents — semantic + recency search, ONNX embeddings, Docker Compose.

local only
I
Hipocampo MCP
by carrasquelalex1

Bilingual dual memory with SSC for AI agents. Semantic search, embeddings, profiles.

37 tools answering

Obsidian Semantic Search — questions

Answers built from our own checks of this server.

Why is there no uptime for Obsidian Semantic Search?
Obsidian Semantic Search runs on your own machine over stdio — there is no network address to reach, so uptime cannot be measured for it by anyone. What can be measured is adoption: the npm package @dalecb/obsidian-semantic-mcp was installed 93 times last week.
How do I connect Obsidian Semantic Search?
Copy the ready config from this page — we generate it for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor and VS Code, each with the file path that client actually reads. It runs locally, so the command pulls @dalecb/obsidian-semantic-mcp straight from npm; nothing to host, nothing to sign up for.
How many people use Obsidian Semantic Search?
The npm package @dalecb/obsidian-semantic-mcp was installed 93 times in the last week. Week over week that is +92%. We show installs rather than GitHub stars on purpose: a star is a bookmark, an install is someone actually running it.
Is Obsidian Semantic Search open source?
Yes — it is published under the MIT licence, written in JavaScript and 1 stars on GitHub. The source link is on this page, so you can read exactly what it does with your data before you connect it.