The-40-Thieves/obsidian-tc

> Obsidian Turbocharged — governed, agent-ready vault access over MCP.
What it is
obsidian-tc is a governed, agent-ready Model Context Protocol
server for Obsidian vaults, for humans and agents alike. Instead of raw
filesystem access to years of notes, every tool call runs through one pipeline — auth, folder
ACLs, a read-only kill switch, HITL confirmation on destructive ops, and an audit log. It also
adds fused retrieval (full-text, vector, graph) and a memory tier — episodes, decay, forgetting —
living *inside* your vault under that same ACL.
**A full tool surface across every domain** (all visible by default; a smaller set with opt-in
profile: "core"), via a 3-tool discovery facade plus the standard search/fetch pair, listed in the
tool catalog. Pitch: docs/WHY.md.
60-second start
No install:
Every note tool and lexical search work immediately. Semantic search defaults to a bundled
embedder — see When NOT to use for which install methods it
reaches.
For multi-vault, auth, or ACLs, use a config file:
Also ships as a Docker image, .mcpb bundle, and standalone binaries. More:
docs/QUICKSTART.md.
When NOT to use obsidian-tc
Honest guidance — this is a heavier product than most:
- **Smallest possible footprint, read-only access, or no MCP at all.** A single trusted human
over one vault, a read-only wrapper, or the Obsidian URI/Local REST API plugin may be
all you need — see the full comparison.
- **Zero setup, source checkouts only.** The vault is read off disk; semantic
search defaults to a bundled offline embedder; npm/Docker need an explicit provider until
published — see Embeddings.
- **Zero-config trades away auth/ACLs.** obsidian-tc /path/to/vault boots with auth off, no
folder ACL — fine only because it's local-only; governance is opt-in. Detail: SECURITY.md.
- **AGPL-3.0's network-copyleft terms.** Not permissive; a commercial license may exist — see
License.
- **Single-maintainer project.**
- **Everything inside Obsidian, or vault-independent memory.** See the
comparison above.
Migrating from another MCP server: docs/CUTOVER.md.
How it compares
Most Obsidian MCP projects are vault-access servers, retrieval engines, or memory engines, rarely
more than one. obsidian-tc is the only one we know of that is all three, with memory living **in
the vault** under the same ACL as every other write. Full 9-project table and "where the others
win".
| | Tools | Group | What it's for |
|---|---|---|---|
| **obsidian-tc** | full surface (3-tool facade) | all three | governed access + retrieval + in-vault memory |
| obsidian-local-rest-api | 18 | access | Obsidian's own built-in MCP server; one bearer key, no ACL |
| basic-memory | ~35 | memory | entities/relations in a separate, portable markdown KB |
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More
Table of contents
TC Bridge ·
Status ·
Architecture ·
The interface ·
Claude Code / Cursor / VS Code ·
Docs ·
Trademark ·
License ·
Contributing
TC Bridge: the companion Obsidian plugin
If you arrived here from Obsidian's plugin browser: the **TC Bridge** listing points here because
the plugin lives in this repo, but it's a small optional bridge, not the server described above. It
extends Local REST API with endpoints
for Obsidian-only features (Templater, Dataview, Tasks, Excalidraw, Git, Remotely Save). Every
filesystem-level feature works without it.
- **Install Local REST API first**; TC Bridge reuses its bearer-token auth, desktop-only. The