| name | obsidian-capture |
| description | Save a note, decision, or thought to the Obsidian vault right now. Use when someone says "capture this", "save this to Obsidian", "note this down", "log this decision", "obsidian note", "save this for later", "capture that idea". Requires OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH to be set.
|
Obsidian Capture
Save an ad-hoc note, decision, or thought to the vault immediately. Captures
always land in Claude/captures/ (global, not project-specific) and are linked
into the project's daily note automatically.
Step 1 — Check configuration
Read OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH from the environment:
- Bash:
bash -c 'echo $OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH'
- PowerShell:
$env:OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH
If empty, stop and tell the user:
"OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH is not set. Re-run install.sh and provide your vault
path when prompted, or add it manually to ~/.claude/settings.json under
the env key."
Also read:
OBSIDIAN_REST_API_KEY (empty string if unset — key presence gates REST API use)OBSIDIAN_REST_API_PORT (default 27124 if unset)OBSIDIAN_REST_API_HTTPS (default "true" if unset)OBSIDIAN_PROJECTS_FOLDER (empty string if unset — used for daily note routing)
Step 2 — Collect content
Ask the user: "What do you want to capture?"
Accept a title and body, or just body text (title will default to the first
line of the body if not provided separately).
Step 3 — Write capture file (REST API if key present, filesystem fallback)
3a. REST API attempt (skip if OBSIDIAN_REST_API_KEY is empty)
If the key is set, attempt to write the capture file via PowerShell.
Vault-relative capture path (always): Claude/captures/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<HHmm>.md
Build the capture markdown (same format obsidian-writer would produce):
---
type: claude/capture
project: <project>
date: <YYYY-MM-DD>
captured_at: <YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm>
tags: [claude, capture]
---
## <title>
<body>
Attempt the PUT — try PowerShell first, curl fallback:
PowerShell (Windows PS5.1 or PS7, or macOS/Linux with pwsh installed):
$key = $env:OBSIDIAN_REST_API_KEY
$port = if ($env:OBSIDIAN_REST_API_PORT) { $env:OBSIDIAN_REST_API_PORT } else { "27124" }
$scheme = if ($env:OBSIDIAN_REST_API_HTTPS -eq 'false') { 'http' } else { 'https' }
$vaultRel = "Claude/captures/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<HHmm>.md"
$url = "${scheme}://127.0.0.1:${port}/vault/${vaultRel}"
$body = @"<capture markdown content>"@
$irm = @{ Method='Put'; Uri=$url; Body=$body; ContentType='text/markdown'; TimeoutSec=5
Headers=@{"Authorization"="Bearer $key";"Content-Type"="text/markdown"} }
try {
if ($PSVersionTable.PSVersion.Major -ge 7) {
Invoke-RestMethod @irm -SkipCertificateCheck
} else {
[Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = {$true}
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
Invoke-RestMethod @irm
}
$apiWritten = $true
} catch {
$apiWritten = $false
}
If PowerShell tool is unavailable (macOS/Linux without pwsh), use curl via Bash:
KEY="$OBSIDIAN_REST_API_KEY"
PORT="${OBSIDIAN_REST_API_PORT:-27124}"
SCHEME=$([ "$OBSIDIAN_REST_API_HTTPS" = "false" ] && echo "http" || echo "https")
VAULT_REL="Claude/captures/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<HHmm>.md"
BODY='<capture markdown content>'
STATUS=$(curl -sk -X PUT \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: text/markdown" \
--data-binary "$BODY" \
-w "%{http_code}" -o /dev/null \
"${SCHEME}://127.0.0.1:${PORT}/vault/${VAULT_REL}")
[ "${STATUS:-0}" -ge 200 ] && [ "${STATUS:-0}" -lt 300 ] && apiWritten=true || apiWritten=false
- If
$apiWritten is $true: dispatch obsidian-writer with session_api_written: true
(obsidian-writer will skip capture file creation and only append the daily note)
- If
$apiWritten is $false: dispatch obsidian-writer normally
3b. Dispatch obsidian-writer
Invoke the obsidian-writer agent with:
write_mode: capturevault_path: value of OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATHprojects_folder: value of OBSIDIAN_PROJECTS_FOLDER (empty string if unset)title: user's titlebody: user's body textproject: basename of current working directorytimestamp: current datetime in YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm formatsession_api_written: true if 3a succeeded, false otherwise
Step 4 — Confirm
Report the file path and write method. Example:
"Captured to Claude/captures/2026-05-14-1430.md (via REST API)"
or:
"Captured to Claude/captures/2026-05-14-1430.md (filesystem)"
Gotchas
- Capture files always go to
Claude/captures/ — they are not project-scoped.
- If
OBSIDIAN_REST_API_KEY is missing: skip step 3a entirely and dispatch
obsidian-writer with session_api_written: false.
- The daily note append is always handled by obsidian-writer (filesystem).
- If obsidian-writer reports the vault directory doesn't exist, tell the user
to verify the path in
~/.claude/settings.json.
