Obsidian Local REST API is a plugin that exposes an Obsidian vault through a secure, authenticated REST API and Model Context Protocol server. Scripts, browser extensions, and AI agents use it to read, search, create, update, and delete notes and other vault files. Its catalogue add-ons provide instructions and settings for using the integration.
Borrowing it
Nothing to install: this file belongs to coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api/main/AGENTS.mdgit clone --depth 1 https://github.com/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-apiWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api/agents-md)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api/agents-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api/agents-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api/agents-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.02812 | $0.02812 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.01125 | $0.01125 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00562 | $0.00562 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00281 | $0.00281 |
Grade C, and why
obsidian-local-rest-api AGENTS.md scanned grade C with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 20d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Recursive force deletehighDestructive command
rm -rf with a variable or a broad path is one typo away from removing the wrong tree.
rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 219 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Agent Instructions
Commit Process
Commit cadence
Commit frequently in small, self-contained increments. Each commit on main must leave the repository in a working state — no broken builds, no failing unit tests. A commit that fixes a bug, a commit that adds a test, and a commit that updates documentation are all valid atomic units. Do not batch unrelated changes into a single commit.
When working on fixing a bug while on a branch off of main, follow a Test-Driven Development approach and start by creating (and committing) failing tests that will later be fixed by fixes your subsequent commits.
Push Automatically
After making any particular commit, you can feel free to push that branch to the remote.
Running tests before committing
Run the unit test suite before every commit:
npm test
Integration tests require a live Obsidian instance with the plugin's insecure HTTP server enabled and OBSIDIAN_API_KEY set. Run them when Obsidian is available, and always run them before pushing changes that touch endpoint behavior:
npm run test:integration
Two groups of integration tests are skipped by default and opt in via environment variable, because each needs something of the person running them:
OBSIDIAN_ACTIVE_FILE=<vault-relative path>— enables theactive_file_*tests, which need that file open in Obsidian.OBSIDIAN_TEST_OPEN_FILE=1— enables theopen_filetest. It is off by default because opening a file pulls Obsidian to the foreground and takes keyboard focus mid-run, so keystrokes meant for another window can land in the opened note.OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH=<absolute path to the vault>— enables the configuration-directory symlink test, which plants a symlink to.obsidianunder the integration fixture directory (and removes it afterwards) to check the guard follows a path to where it lands on disk.
One group runs by default and opts out instead, because the feature it needs is on by default:
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 20d ago Changed · +12 lines · +330 tokens per session scan A → C 342f7898022a
- 1mo ago Changed · +4 lines · +66 tokens per session b221b5c96440
- 1mo ago Changed · +7 lines · +82 tokens per session 4f6dd3453e1c
- 2mo ago First seen · 196 lines · 2,334 tokens per session scan A a8913e9dab78
obsidian-local-rest-api AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository coddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api (3,116 stars, last pushed 20d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 2,812 tokens to every session, about $0.0112 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it C with 1 finding (recursive force delete). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.
obsidian-local-rest-api AGENTS.md compared with instructions from other repositories
| Mod | Type | Stars | Last push | Licence | Scan | Tokens | Works with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| obsidian-local-rest-api AGENTS.mdcoddingtonbear/obsidian-local-rest-api | Instructions file | 3.1k | 20d ago | MIT | C | 2,812 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 9,719 | GitHub Copilot |
| next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js | Instructions file | 143k | today | MIT | A | 7,461 | Codex, OpenCode |
| langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain | Instructions file | 149k | yesterday | MIT | A | 4,680 | Codex, OpenCode |
| vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 5,516 | GitHub Copilot |
| vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode | Instructions file | 195k | yesterday | MIT | A | 3,093 | GitHub Copilot |
| deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness | Instructions file | 274k | 2d ago | MIT | A | 4,313 | Codex, OpenCode |