dakotahp/crystal-cove

Cloud Obsidian Vault, ready for Claude and ChatGPT, in one container. Native sync, note tools, and sign-in are all built in, so there is nothing else to set up. (Works locally on your laptop, too.)
What's in the box
The Why
Which setup do you need?
Installation
On your computer
On a cloud server
What agents can do
More docs
## What's in the box
One container holds every part an assistant needs to work in your vault:
Obsidian Sync. Obsidian's official headless client keeps the vault in sync. No need for the desktop app or CLI.
An MCP server. Tools that read, search, and edit notes the way Obsidian sees them, over the Model Context Protocol.
Sign-in. A built-in sign-in page for claude.ai, the Claude mobile app, and ChatGPT.
Secure by design. A read-only container, soft deletes to the vault's .trash, and a readiness check that waits for sync.
You only need only:
An Obsidian Sync subscription.
Docker.
For use from a phone or claude.ai: A virtual private server with HTTPS URL, if you want to make your vault accessible to cloud agents.
## The Why
Obsidian has no first-party way to give an agent your vault from a cloud server. Its CLI needs the desktop app to be running and has many idiosyncrasies.
An assistant needs three things at once to work well in a vault, and most other projects give two:
1. The official sync engine. Nothing here reimplements Obsidian Sync, and nothing depends on a desktop app that is awake.
2. Reach from anywhere. MCP over HTTPS with sign-in, so a browser, a phone, or a cloud agent can connect.
3. Tools that understand notes. A vault is more than a folder of Markdown files. Tools that know about names, tags, links, and sections use fewer tokens than readfile and listdirectory.
Crystal Cove packs all three into one container. That means:
Claude (claude.ai, Claude Code, Claude Desktop) and ChatGPT can read, search, create, edit, and organize your notes.
Every write syncs to your Obsidian apps within seconds. A note you write on your phone is visible to your assistant.
It runs all the time wherever you host containers: a NAS, a VPS, Kubernetes, or a Raspberry Pi (images are amd64 and arm64).
## Which setup do you need?
The same container works in two places, and agents see the same tools in both:
| | On your computer | On a server |
| Connects | Claude Code, Cursor, and other MCP clients on that computer | claude.ai, the Claude mobile app, ChatGPT, and coding agents anywhere |
| Address | http://127.0.0.1:8080/ | https://obsidian.example.com/ |
| Sign-in | A token you generate | The built-in sign-in page and your password |
| You need | Docker | Docker, a domain name, and HTTPS (a reverse proxy or tunnel) |
| Good for | Daily agent work where you don't need remote access, in place of a plugin or the Obsidian CLI | Your vault from a phone, and agents that run while your computer is off |
## Installation
To use Crystal Cove, you copy the docker-compose file to where you will run it, sign into Obsidian Sync, and hook it up to your agents. Accounts with multi-factor authentication and end-to-end encrypted vaults both work.
1. Download the compose file into a new folder:
sh
mkdir crystal-cove && cd crystal-cove