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Automate Note Generation in Obsidian with AI Claude and MCP Servers

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Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Paul and in today's video, we're

going to explore the modal context

protocol within Obsidian. We'll explore

how to automate your note generation

using an open-source MCP server and claw

desktop. If you're an Obsidian user

looking to experiment with AI tools,

this video is for you. Join me as we

automate note creation in Obsidian with

AI. Modal context protocol overview. In

today's video, we're going to be

covering the modal contacts protocol.

MCP is going to allow us to use cord

desktop to automate our note creation

inside of Obsidian. We're going to do

this with some AI prompts. So, how does

this work? Well, we use a free MCP

client called Claude Desktop, and we

connect that to some free open-source

MCP server tools. And these MCP servers

for Obsidian give us the functionality

to use tools such as search, list files,

and vault, delete files, get file

contents, patch content, and append

content. And this is all done through

connecting our Obsidian Vault with a

REST API. So today's video is going to

cover two options of setting this up

with your Obsidian Vault. So option one

will be an advanced setup and this is

going to install MCP server for Obsidian

using Python UV claw desktop and the

rest API community plugin. We'll also

run through option two MCP tools which

is an easy setup and this only requires

claw desktop rest API community plugin

and MCP tools community plugin. So, I'll

start off with a showcase of some use

cases on what functionality this can

give you within Obsidian and then we'll

move on to setting up our advanced setup

and our easy setup MCP server use case

examples. Here I am inside of Obsidian

and I've created a AI research vault

with some automated note generation

prompts. If I have a look over to the

left, I have my MCP server installed. If

I jump into community plugins, I've also

installed MCP tools and you can see that

I've got the MCP server installed here

as well. If I go ahead and open up Claw

Desktop, I can see that I've got 30 MCP

tools available to me. And if I

leftclick, I can see all the MCP tools

that are now available to Claude. And

these are going to allow me to interact

with my vault. So we can see here we've

got list vault files, append content,

delete files. If I click this attach

from MCP, I can navigate down and see my

installed MCP servers. So I've got my

GitHub MCP Obsidian option one server.

Then I have my Obsidian MCP tools option

2 server. If I go up to file and choose

settings and come down to developer, I

can see the two servers are running here

and we can see the arguments that

they're using. I can go and edit the

config, but I don't need

to. So, I'm going to come into Obsidian

and copy my prompt here and go back to

Claw Desktop and paste that prompt. And

the prompt is, I would like to be

motivated today. Can you create an

inspirational folder in my vault to

inspire me to keep going? because I'm

feeling a little bit uninspired today.

So, let's go ask Claude 3.7 Sonnet to

interact with my Obsidian vault. Now,

you'll see this prompt asking to allow

access to Obsidian. So, I'm just going

to select allow. Now, I'm not doing this

on my main Obsidian vault because it is

making changes and it can read my vault.

So, that's why I've set up an AI

research vault in order to run these

examples. So, you can see that Claude is

going and creating an inspiration daily

affirmations note in MySpaces folder.

It's also created a motivational quotes

note in MySpaces folder. It's now

creating a goal

tracker. It's using the create vault

file tool to create a personal wins

And finally, it's created a visual

inspiration note for inspirational

images that I can collect and add. Going

to select allow

again. So now it's going to give me a

summary of everything that it has done

for me. So it's created a comprehensive

in inspirational folder with several

motivational resources. I can see I have

daily affirmations, motivational quotes,

goal tracker, personal wins, inspiration

for tough days, and visual inspiration.

It's placed it in my spaces directory,

and it's ready for me to customize. So,

let's go have a look inside of my spaces

folder and see I've got now a folder

called inspiration. If I click on the

first note, daily affirmations, can see

that I have a few daily affirmations

here that I can run through for strength

and perseverance, productivity and

focus, self-worth and confidence. So,

these could be quite useful for daily

affirmations. There's a little example

of a goal tracker. I don't know if that

would be useful or not, but it's quite

nice that it's created that for me.

There's a note about inspiration for

tough days because we all face difficult

moments and this is going to be an

emergency toolkit. So, this could be

quite a nice note to customize and use.

Motivational quotes. So, I could go

through these and see if I like any of

these quotes. I could reformat them. So,

I quite like this one. The way to get

started is to quit talking and begin

doing the future depends on what you do

today on taking action. So there's quite

a few nice quotes in there that I can

read through. Let's have a look at the

personal wins. Okay. So that's just a

few heading twos with some examples of

wins, achievements, and personal growth

moments. So this could be good for like

a reflection or journal. And then it

hasn't downloaded any photos for my

visual inspiration page, but it's just

giving me an example of how this might

be laid out. Okay, so that's been quite interesting.

interesting.

So let's go back to our automated note

generation prompt and let's do our next

example which is a book research of

atomic habits. So I'll just go ahead and

copy this prompt that I've already

precreated. Come back into my claw

desktop. Might just start a new chat and

paste in the next prompt. And the next

prompt is, can you create a research

folder called Atomic Habits and add all

the best ideas and tools from the book?

I need to allow it. Again, I've also got

a note there to make sure each note has

valid YAML and links back to an index or

map of content. So, I'm just going to

monitor what it's doing and accept any

requests to make changes to my AI

research vault. So this time it's

creating the folder Atomic Habits inside

of my spaces folder. Now I might not

want it to be in that location, but at

least I know where it's been created, so

I can always review it after the process

has been completed. So we'll go ahead

and speed up the video just so that we

bit. So this one's taking a little bit

longer than the first one. And it's

probably been about 10 minutes so far.

And I've just got a message from Claude

to say Claude hit the max length for the

message and has paused its response. So

I can hit continue to keep going or I

can just stop where it is. So let's just

have a look to see what it's done so

far. So if I head up to spaces, I can

see I've got a folder called Atomic

Habits with the number nine. So there's

nine notes. I have my map of content in

here. So, I might want to move that up

to my map of content. And then I can see

that it's linking to all the other notes

that it's created here. So, we've got

four laws of behavior change, Q,

craving, response, reward. We've got

identity based habits, outcome, process,

identity. There's a bit of information

in there. We've got one about habit

stacking, environmental design, plateau

of latent potential, the 2minut rule.

when we start a new habit, it should

take less than two minutes to do it. And

we've also got a habit score card and

implementation intentions. So, I've got

quite a lot of information there. So, as

this is a demonstration, I'm not going

to continue on making more notes, but

I'm pretty happy with what's being

far. So, I'm just going to go copy my

topic example here. I'm going to just

make a new chat and I'm going to paste

in my topic example and this one's going

to be can you create a research folder

called AI and add markdown notes about

the impact of artificial intelligence on

the future of education. Ensure that

notes follow strict YAML tag and

Obsidian markdown structure. And I might

change tag to tags. I'm just going to

hit enter on that one. So Claude's going

to ask me to create the AI folder with

the Obsidian list files. So I'll say

allow. Once again, it's put it in my

spaces folder under research. Then a

subfolder AI. It wants to create files

now. So I'm going to say yes. Go create

some files. I don't really know why it's

putting numbering perform and markdown

notes besides the fact that I've got

numbering on my six folders here. So,

I'm thinking it's trying to mimic my

starter kit. I could probably tell it to

not do that. I'll just let it go for

now. So, you can see it's mostly using

the Obsid So, you can see that it's

using the Obsidian MCP tools in order to

files. It's taking about 5 to 10 minutes

to create my AI research structure. So,

it's telling me that it's got a map of

content and five detailed topic notes.

So, let's go have a look in the spaces

research AI folder. I can see six notes

in there and I've got a map of content

as the first note and then it's simply

just linking through to all the other

notes that it's created. So, we'll have

a look at the first one AI and

education. So it just mentions that it's

increasingly being integrated into

educational environments, key

transformation areas, and some research

statistics and then some links to the

other notes that it's created here. So

we've got personalized learning AI

systems, case studies, AI assessment

tools, ethical

considerations, and future classroom

models. So, it's even given us an

implementation timeline here. So, this

may or may not be useful to me. I guess

it's interesting to see what the AI

tools. So, I'm just going to copy the

prompt here, jump into Claude, create a

new chat, paste in my prompt. Can you

create a minimalistic Obsidian Bolt with

minimalistic templates using valid YAML

and tags? create it in a new folder

called minimalistic bolt and ensure that

each node has valid YAML and follows

Obsidian's best practices. So we'll hit

enter on that one. So at least this way

it's not going to go delete any of my

folders and it just gives me another

concept vault to look at. Now, this

might be useful if you're just have an

empty vault and you've connected up MCP

tools and you just want to create a

vault structure to start with. So, we

can see it's created the folder here,

minimalistic vault. Now, it's going to

go create the essential templates. So,

we've got one here for our daily note.

Got a project template, a reference

template. You see that it's putting YAML

in there when the file was created. And

there's some templated syntax in there

as well. So it's actually writing the

templated code for us, which is

handy. Okay, so now it's going to go

create some sample notes based on what it's

created. Oh, so now it's going to go

create aobsidian folder inside of my

vault with an

app.json file with some settings. And

it's also doing my appearance settings

and core plugins. Okay, so it's actually

thinking that it needs to create a whole

new Obsidian Vault for me. This is very

interesting. Now it's doing my hotkeys.

I think one of the challenging things

with this tool is it's kind of hard to

interject whilst the AI is automating my

notes. And I have to wait a little bit

of time between prompts as well. So, I'm

looking at, you know, 5 to 10 minutes

every time I ask Claude to do something.

So, unless I'm really specific with my

prompts, it might not give me the output

that I want, but I can always revise and

change it later. But depending on how

much time I want to spend waiting for

Claude to automate everything and then

go back, review, and summarize, you

know, could be a bit of a waste of time.

If I already had the information with as

much detail as possible, that could save

me a lot of time. Okay, so we can see

here that my minimalistic vault is set

up. So, let's go have a look. So, we've

got some templates. We've got a daily

note template. Well, that's interesting.

It's even put emojis in there for me.

Got a meeting template, project

template, reference. There is some YAML

properties here, too, which is nice.

That's what I asked for. Let's actually

added some YAML properties in there. I

have a look at the source

code. They're just static dates. So,

they're not actually templator snippets.

So, it's not going to be a dynamic

template. I also don't like this. What's

under here? I've got an example of

daily. Okay. So, it's done how it looks

if you do a daily journal. An inbox

quick capture website redesign. Okay. So

this is an example of a project page and

then some references. Okay, interesting.

And a readme page explaining what it's

created. Okay, well that was

interesting, I guess. So I guess you

know if you give the AI enough

information, then it you could come up

with some interesting automations here.

So, I encourage you to experiment with

MCP tools on a second Obsidian Bolt

that's not your main Obsidian Bolt and

see whether you can find a good use case

for this new technology. How to set up

MCP server for Obsidian. Option one is

going to be MCP server for Obsidian. And

this is using Marcus Funstein's MCP

server for Obsidian. And this MCP server

allows you to interact with Obsidian via

the Obsidian REST API. And this is going

to be an advanced setup. So we need to

do a few steps here in order to get it

working. So the first thing we need to

do is head over to

python.org/d downloads and select the

download Python. Your version may vary

compared to mine. Once you've downloaded

the installer, double click to install

it and select install now. That will go

install Python on your computer. While

that's running and installing, you can

docs.astral.sh/uv and head up to

installation and I want you to copy this

PowerShell script here. And then we

simply just open up PowerShell on our

computer and paste the command. Hit the

enter key and that will go install UV.

Now we need to take note of this install

location as we'll need to add it to our

config later. So, just go ahead,

highlight and copy and paste that to a

notepad. Now, this is optional, but you

can download and install my free starter

vault, or I'd recommend just using a

empty vault to set this up cuz it is

going to have access to your Obsidian

files and be able to make changes to

your vault. So, it's best to do it in a

testing environment first. I'll just

select get now and go download the

starter vault. Whilst I've gone and done

that, I can see that my Python setup was

successful. So I'll just close this.

Then I'm going to extract my starter

vault pro to the location that I want to

create my Obsidian Bolt. You can see

here I've put it in my D drive under

demo vaults. I'm just going to rename

this to AI research vault. So now I need

to open this up in Obsidian. So go ahead

and open Obsidian. So just select open

and navigate to where you placed that

starter kit. If you want to create a new

vault, just select create. I've already

opened it. So I'm going to select AI

research vault. So here's my vault that

I'm going to install MCP server on. So

now I need to go get MCP server. So I'm

going to head over to Marcus Funstein's

GitHub and this will be MCP server for

Obsidian. Now there's a couple ways you

can do it. You can head up to code,

download the zip, and place it in your

vault. Or what I like to do is just copy

the command here and pull it down from

GitHub. So I'm going to go do that and

I'm going to jump into PowerShell. And

then I'm going to navigate to the vault

location. So the easiest way to do that

is to hold shift

rightclick and copy its path. And then

come back into PowerShell and change

directory space. Right click the mouse.

And that's going to change to my demo

vault AI research fold. Now what I want

to do is I want to come back over to

here and copy this command the copy URL

to my clipboard. Go back into PowerShell

get clone space paste. Enter. That's

going to go pull down the MCP server

called MCP Obsidian to my AI research

vault. So I can do a diir to list the

directory. And I can see it's listed

here. If I minimize and go into my file

explorer into my AI research vault, I

can see it's here as well. And then

there are all the files. If we jump into

Obsidian, we can see that we have our

MCP server here. Now, you don't need to

place it in the Obsidian vault, but I

just like to place it in there just so I

know where it is. You could put it in

your toolkit if you wanted to. I'll just

leave it here for the demo. And then

what I'm going to do is I'm going to go

and install Claude. So head over to

claude.ai/d download and install Claude.

So now that we've got Claude installed,

head back into Obsidian, go down to your

settings, head up to community plugins,

select browse, type in REST, and select

the local REST API. Go ahead and install

and enable the local REST API. jump

straight into the options and copy your

API key and just go and paste that into

a notepad as well. So now we're ready to

connect Claude to Obsidian. So go click

start and launch Claude. Now you'll

notice nothing happens and that's

because we haven't set up the

configuration yet. So to do that, what

we're going to do is close Claude. Now

notice on the taskbar here, Claude is

still running. So we need to rightclick

and close it here as well. And then what

I want to do is I want to head back over

to the GitHub and I want to scroll

down and we can see here that we've got

our configuration that we need to add to

Claude. So where do we find that

configuration? Well, there's a couple

ways of getting to it. We can navigate

direct to it here on Windows. So we can

highlight Ctrl C to copy, then Windows

key R, paste, and hit okay. And that is

going to open up our claw desktop

configuration. You can see it's

currently empty. Now I'm using Visual

Studio Code, but you can use any code

editor or notepad that you would like.

So another option you can do is inside

of Claude with Claude open, we can come

up to the top here and we can go under

file, then over to settings, click

developer, and select edit config. And

that's going to show the config file

here. And then we can rightclick and

open in our editor. So, whatever's

quickest for you. And then we need to

add our configuration. So, if I have a

look here and scroll up, here's the

configuration that we need to add. So,

I'm just going to copy this and then go

back to our configuration and paste it

in. Now, we need to make a few changes

here. So, we need to specify where we

installed UVX. We also need to add some

arguments and we need to add our

Obsidian environment API key and this is

going to be from our local REST API

plugin. So to save time I'm just going

to paste it in and then I'll go through

it with you. So the command that I'm

using is my C users the name of my user

folder.lo bin where UV has been

installed. Then I'm placing my Obsidian

API key. And I can double check that by

going here and copying it and then going

back into my code editor and making sure

it's the correct one. Then I've got some

arguments here. So I've got the location

of my directory which is listed here and

it's pointing to MCP Obsidian. So that

will be different for you as well. And

if you're not sure, you can just hold

shift rightclick and copy as path. And

then when you paste that in, it'll show

you your path there. Now, notice how

I've got forward slashes, not

backslashes. So, it's important to have

a forward slash there. Now, I'll leave

this in the video description so you can

make changes to it as you would like.

Make sure you hit save on that. So, now

we've got our config file set up for

Claude. So, what we want to do is close

Claude. Come down and force close it

from our taskbar. Go ahead and launch

Claude again. This time what should

happen is we should see a tool icon

appear with our 12 MCP tools available.

And then inside there we can see all our

available MCP tools. We can also attach

from MCP and see our MCP Obsidian MCP

server installed. So we're ready to go.

I'll just copy and paste a prompt here.

I'm researching MCP server for Obsidian.

Can you create a research folder with

the relevant markdown notes about this

topic? ensure that eachote has valid

YAML and follows Obsidian's best

practices. And we'll just hit enter on

that. So, I need to allow this in order

for MCP to access my vault. I'm just

going to hit allow. Now, it's already

detected my MCP folder. So, it's just

going to go scan through that folder and

see what I've got in there. So, it's

ignoring that folder and it's going to

go create another folder called MCP

server research. We can see here that

it's created MCP overview. So this is

going to take a few minutes to run

through. I can see that it's already

created that folder up the top here. So

we'll just let it run its path and we'll

review what Claude has done after everything

completes. So it's probably taken about

5 minutes to go do that research for me

and it's only created five markdown

files in my vault. We can see that we

have an overview, installation setup,

core functionality, API reference, and

Python client information. So, I can

just review all these markdown notes and

see if they are useful to me. How to set

up MCP tools in Obsidian. Let's go set

up option two, MCP tools, easy setup on

our Windows PC. And this is also

available to the public on GitHub. So if

you want to go check out the source

code, you can have a look at it here. So

the first thing to do is to go to

claude.ai/d download and select Windows

and install the application. I'm going

to use the Obsidian Starter Vault free

as my testing vault. Extract the

contents of the Obsidian Starter Vault

and go and change the name to the name

you would like to name the vault. I'll

call this one AI research vault. Then we

want to go and open our new vault from

Obsidian. You can open folder as a vault

by selecting this option. And if you've

already opened it previously, then you

can select it up on the left hand side.

I need to navigate down to settings, go

up to community plugins, select browse,

do a search for REST, and select the

local REST API. Go ahead and install and

enable the local REST API. We'll jump

into the options and we're going to copy

our API key. And this will be unique for

your device. So just go and copy and

paste that into a notepad. Head back up

to community plugin. Select browse and

do a search for MCP tools by Jack Steam.

And you can see a link here to the

GitHub repository. So this is going to

allow us to securely connect claw

desktop to our vault with search

templates and file management

capabilities. So we'll go ahead and

select install and we need to enable MCP

tools and then jump into the options.

Now we can see here that MCP server is

not installed even though we've

installed the plugin. So we need to go

ahead and select install server. We can

see at the top right that it's

downloading the MCP server from the

GitHub repository. There are a few

dependencies here. So you can see that

it's already installed the local REST

API and templator. I don't have smart

connections installed and that one is

optional. So it will show me what the

version is up the top there and at the

time of recording it is MCP server version

version

0.2.22. I can click on server install

folder and I can see that this plugin

places a MCP tax server.exe file in

myobsidian plugins MCP tools folder. Now

if you don't like these sort of

applications being installed on your

computer then go with the advanced

option that we covered earlier. So now

we have our vault set up. Let's go open

up Claude. So select start and then

select Claude. Now we can see here that

cord has detected 18 MCP tools available

and we can click and see all the type of

tools that are available with this

community plugin. So I can scroll down

and see all the available tools. I can

also select attach from MCP and have a

look to see that my Obsidian MCP tools

is installed. So now I can start

interacting with my vault. So, I'll just

go ahead and use the same prompt that I

use in my showcase, and that will be, I

would like to be motivated today. Can

you create me an inspirational folder in

my vault to inspire me to keep going?

And I'm going to submit. So, I need to

allow this to run. So, I need to select

allow for this chat. This is going to

allow Claude to go and build this for me

in my Cidium vault. We can see over to

the left hand side here that it's

already created a folder called

inspiration. Now, this will take a

little bit of time to complete. So, just be

patient. As I've already covered this in

the showcase, I'll just skip ahead to

So we can see that our inspiration room

folder has been created successfully and

Cord is telling us the six things that

it's created. And then we can go see in

our vault here that we have our daily

affirmations, our goal setting guide,

inspirational dashboard, motivational

quotes, personal wins, and success

stories. Now I like to use an empty

vault in order to use MCP tools. Then I

can just take the best snippets from the

automation and put it into my main

vault. Totally up to you if you want to

connect your main vault or not. But just

remember that MCP tools can read and

manipulate markdown files in your vault.

And there you have it. How to automate

note generation inside Obsidian with MCP

servers and Claw Desktop. I hope you've

enjoyed the video and are excited to try

these tools out for yourself. If you

have been experimenting with MCP tools

in other ways, please share your

thoughts and experience in the comments

below. Thanks for watching and I'll see

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Automate Note Generation in Obsidian with AI Claude and MCP Servers