Use them when developing or maintaining tools to list, read, create, update, or delete Obsidian files and notes.

They document the bridge, its main files, and the operations available for files, notes, and vault content.

How j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp configures GitHub Copilot

Q: What is obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp copilot-instructions.md?

Project instructions for a server that lets AI applications work with an Obsidian vault through Obsidian’s local REST API. An Obsidian vault is a folder of linked notes and other files.

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp/main/.github/copilot-instructions.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp

Made for: GitHub Copilot.

Wrote 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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp/copilot-instructions/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp/copilot-instructions)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp/copilot-instructions/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp/copilot-instructions"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp/copilot-instructions.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 505 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 505 The same file — it is already loaded in full.

Security scan C 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

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	$0.00505	$0.00505
Opus 5	$0.00253	$0.00253
Sonnet 5	$0.00101	$0.00101
Haiku 4.5	$0.00051	$0.00051

Measured 11d ago against content hash 029996686d74, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp copilot-instructions.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 11d 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.

Hidden instructionshighPrompt injection

Directives inside HTML comments, invisible characters or bidirectional overrides are read by the model and not by the person reviewing the file.

<!-- Use this file to provide workspace-specific custom instructions to Copilot. For more details, visit https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/copilot-customization#_use-a-githubcopilotinstructionsmd-file -->

.github/copilot-instructions.md · 60 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 60 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Obsidian Local REST API MCP Server

You can find more info and examples at https://modelcontextprotocol.io/llms-full.txt

Project Context

This is an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides LLM tool calls to interact with an Obsidian vault through a local REST API. The server acts as a bridge between MCP clients (like Claude Desktop, VS Code, etc.) and the Obsidian Local REST API.

Architecture

MCP Server: Implements the Model Context Protocol server specification
API Client: Wraps the Obsidian Local REST API endpoints
Tools: Exposes vault operations as MCP tools for LLM consumption

Key Files

src/index.ts - Main MCP server implementation
package.json - Project configuration with bun support
tsconfig.json - TypeScript configuration optimized for Node16 modules

Available Tools

The server exposes these tools to MCP clients:

File Operations

list_files - List all files in vault
get_file - Get file content
create_file - Create new file/directory
update_file - Update file content
delete_file - Delete file

Note Operations

list_notes - List notes with metadata
get_note - Get note with frontmatter
create_note - Create note with optional frontmatter
update_note - Update note content/frontmatter
delete_note - Delete note
search_notes - Search notes by content

Metadata Operations

get_metadata_keys - List all frontmatter keys
get_metadata_values - Get unique values for a key

Configuration

Set environment variables:

OBSIDIAN_API_URL - Base URL of the REST API (default: http://localhost:8000)
OBSIDIAN_API_KEY - Optional bearer token for authentication

Development Guidelines

Use TypeScript strict mode
Follow MCP protocol specifications
Handle errors gracefully with meaningful messages
Validate inputs using zod schemas
Use proper async/await patterns
Log errors to stderr (stdout reserved for MCP protocol)

Read the full file on GitHub · 60 lines

Changes

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.

11d ago First seen · 60 lines · 505 tokens per session scan C 029996686d74

Subscribe to this mod's changes

obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp copilot-instructions.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository j-shelfwood/obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp (9 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 505 tokens to every session, about $0.0025 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 1 finding (hidden instructions). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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obsidian-local-rest-api-mcp: Instructions file for GitHub Copilot