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Make Your Obsidian Vault AI-Searchable

Turn your personal Obsidian notes into a private RAG library for AI assistants

Your Obsidian vault contains years of notes, ideas, and knowledge. In this tutorial, you’ll package it as a libragen library so AI tools can search your personal knowledge base—completely offline and private.

Time required: ~5 minutes

What you’ll learn:

  • Building a library from an Obsidian vault
  • Handling wiki-links and frontmatter
  • Querying your notes with AI
  • Keeping your library in sync

Why This Matters

When you ask an AI assistant a question, it only knows what’s in its training data. But your Obsidian vault contains:

  • Meeting notes and decisions
  • Project documentation
  • Research and learning notes
  • Personal workflows and processes

With libragen, your AI can search your actual notes and give you answers grounded in your own knowledge.

Prerequisites

  • Node.js 20 or later
  • An Obsidian vault with markdown notes

Step 1: Build from Your Vault

Point libragen at your Obsidian vault directory:

Terminal window
libragen build ~/Documents/ObsidianVault \
  --name my-brain \
  --description "My personal knowledge base"

Libragen processes all .md files recursively, including nested folders.

Excluding Folders

Skip templates, daily notes, or other folders you don’t want indexed:

Terminal window
libragen build ~/Documents/ObsidianVault \
  --name my-brain \
  --exclude "**/Templates/**" \
  --exclude "**/Daily Notes/**" \
  --exclude "**/.obsidian/**"

Including Attachments

If you have text-based attachments (like .txt files), include them:

Terminal window
libragen build ~/Documents/ObsidianVault \
  --name my-brain \
  --include "**/*.md" \
  --include "**/*.txt"

Step 2: Test Your Library

Query your notes from the command line:

Terminal window
libragen query --library my-brain "What did we decide about the API redesign?"

You’ll see results from your actual notes:

Results for: "What did we decide about the API redesign?"


[0.91] Projects/API Redesign/Meeting Notes 2024-03-15.md
  Decision: We'll use REST for public endpoints and GraphQL for internal
  dashboard. Timeline is Q2. Sarah owns the migration plan...


[0.87] Projects/API Redesign/Architecture.md
  The new API will follow resource-oriented design. Authentication moves
  to JWT with refresh tokens. Rate limiting at 1000 req/min...


[0.82] Areas/Engineering/Technical Decisions.md
  API Redesign: Approved 2024-03-15. See [[API Redesign/Meeting Notes]]
  for full context...

Step 3: Connect to Your AI Tool

Claude Desktop, Cursor, or Windsurf

Install the MCP server:

Terminal window
npx -y install-mcp @libragen/mcp

Now you can ask Claude or your AI coding assistant:

“Search my notes for everything about the onboarding flow redesign”

“What were the key points from my 1:1 with Sarah last month?”

“Find my notes on Kubernetes networking”

The AI searches your library and responds with information from your actual notes.

Privacy Note

Your notes never leave your machine. Libragen runs entirely locally:

  • Embeddings are generated on your device
  • The library file stays on your disk
  • MCP queries happen locally
  • No data is sent to any cloud service

Step 4: Keep It Updated

Your vault changes constantly. Rebuild periodically to keep your library current.

Manual Rebuild

Terminal window
libragen build ~/Documents/ObsidianVault \
  --name my-brain \
  --description "My personal knowledge base"

This overwrites the previous version.

Automated Rebuild with a Script

Create a simple update script (update-brain.sh):

#!/bin/bash
libragen build ~/Documents/ObsidianVault \
  --name my-brain \
  --description "My personal knowledge base - Updated $(date +%Y-%m-%d)" \
  --exclude "**/Templates/**" \
  --exclude "**/Daily Notes/**" \
  --exclude "**/.obsidian/**"


echo "✓ Library updated at $(date)"

Run it weekly or whenever you’ve added significant notes.

Automated Rebuild with Cron (macOS/Linux)

Update daily at 6 AM:

Terminal window
# Edit crontab
crontab -e


# Add this line
0 6 * * * /path/to/update-brain.sh >> /tmp/libragen-update.log 2>&1

Advanced: Handling Obsidian Features

Libragen preserves wiki-link syntax ([[Note Name]]) in the indexed content. When you query, results may include these links, helping you find related notes.

Frontmatter

YAML frontmatter is included in the searchable content. If your notes have metadata like:

---
tags: [project, api, architecture]
status: in-progress
owner: Sarah
---

You can search for it:

Terminal window
libragen query --library my-brain "notes owned by Sarah"

Dataview Queries

Dataview query blocks are indexed as-is. While libragen won’t execute them, the query text itself becomes searchable, which can help you find notes with specific query patterns.

Canvas Files

Obsidian canvas files (.canvas) are JSON and won’t be processed by default. If you want to index them, you’d need to extract the text content first.

Tips for Better Results

1. Use Descriptive Titles

Notes with clear titles rank higher in search:

  • ✅ API Redesign - Architecture Decision Record
  • ❌ Untitled 23

2. Add Context to Notes

Include project names, people, and dates in your notes. This makes semantic search more effective:

## Meeting: API Redesign Kickoff
**Date:** 2024-03-15
**Attendees:** Sarah, Mike, Alex


Discussed the timeline for migrating to the new REST API...

3. Use Consistent Terminology

If you call something “API” in some notes and “backend service” in others, search may miss connections. Pick consistent terms for important concepts.

4. Organize with MOCs

Maps of Content (MOCs) that link related notes together provide additional context for search, since the links themselves are indexed.

Troubleshooting

”Too many files” or slow processing

Large vaults (10,000+ notes) may take a while. Use --exclude aggressively:

Terminal window
libragen build ~/Documents/ObsidianVault \
  --name my-brain \
  --exclude "**/Archive/**" \
  --exclude "**/Daily Notes/**" \
  --exclude "**/Templates/**"

Notes not appearing in results

Check that:

  1. The file has a .md extension
  2. It’s not in an excluded folder
  3. The file isn’t empty or very short (< 50 characters)

Out of memory

For very large vaults:

Terminal window
NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=8192" libragen build ~/Documents/ObsidianVault --name my-brain

Next Steps