Use your ClawVault vault as an Obsidian vault for visual exploration, graph view, and manual editing.

Obsidian Integration

A ClawVault vault is a directory of Markdown files with YAML frontmatter. This makes it natively compatible with Obsidian -- you can open it as an Obsidian vault and get graph view, backlinks, tags, and visual editing for free.

Opening the Vault in Obsidian

Open as vault

In Obsidian, select "Open folder as vault" and point it to your ClawVault directory (the folder containing .clawvault.json).

Exclude internal files

Create or edit .obsidian/app.json to exclude ClawVault internal files from search and graph:

{
  "userIgnoreFilters": [
    ".clawvault.json",
    ".clawvault/",
    "*.qmd"
  ]
}

Enable wiki-links

Obsidian uses wiki-links by default ([[link]]), which matches ClawVault's linking format. Ensure "Use Wikilinks" is enabled in Settings > Files and Links.

Wiki-Links and Graph View

ClawVault's link command generates wiki-links in the same [[entity]] format Obsidian uses. This means:

Backlinks panel shows all files that reference an entity
Graph view visualizes the full knowledge graph
Clicking a link navigates to the referenced file

Run clawvault link --all to ensure all entity mentions are linked before opening in Obsidian.

clawvault link --all
# Links resolved: 47 mentions across 23 files

The graph view in Obsidian will mirror what clawvault graph shows, with the added benefit of interactive exploration.

ClawVault wiki-links use the entity slug as the link target (e.g., [[pedro]] links to people/pedro.md). Obsidian resolves these automatically as long as file names match.

Tags and Frontmatter

ClawVault stores metadata in YAML frontmatter:

---
id: dec-20260210-auth-refactor
title: "Auth Refactor Decision"
type: decision
category: decisions
tags: [architecture, auth, backend]
related: ["[[project-api]]", "[[pedro]]"]
created: 2026-02-10T14:30:00Z
---

Obsidian reads this frontmatter natively:

Tags appear in the tag pane and are searchable
Properties (Obsidian 1.4+) display frontmatter fields in a structured view
Dataview plugin can query across all memories using frontmatter fields

Example Dataview query for all decisions:

```dataview
TABLE title, created
FROM "decisions"
SORT created DESC


## Daily Notes

ClawVault's daily memory files (`memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md`) align with Obsidian's daily notes pattern. Configure Obsidian's Daily Notes plugin:

- **Date format:** `YYYY-MM-DD`
- **New file location:** your vault's memory folder
- **Template:** optional, but ClawVault daily files already have frontmatter

This lets you view your agent's daily activity logs using Obsidian's calendar and daily notes navigation.

## Cross-Platform Sync

Since the vault is plain Markdown files, any file sync tool works:

### Git (Recommended)

See [Version Control](/guides/git-workflows) for detailed Git workflows.

```bash
# Commit and push from the machine running ClawVault
clawvault sleep "session done" --git-commit

# Pull from another machine
cd vault && git pull

Obsidian Sync

If you use Obsidian Sync, the vault syncs automatically across devices. Be aware that:

.clawvault.json and index files should be excluded from sync (they are machine-specific)
The search index (qmd) is not portable; each machine needs its own

File Sync (Syncthing, Dropbox)

Works for the Markdown files. Exclude:

.clawvault/ (internal state)
*.qmd (search index, machine-specific)

If you edit files in Obsidian while the agent is running, run clawvault reindex afterward to update the search index. ClawVault does not watch for external file changes.

Obsidian Integration

On this page