Obsidian + Orkestra

If you use Obsidian as your personal second brain, you can plug that vault into the same agent that operates Orkestra. No custom plugin, no two-way sync: the agent reads your local notes and executes in Orkestra with preview/confirm — all in the same conversation.

What it's good for

Obsidian is a local Markdown note app. Orkestra is where your team executes. The natural bridge is the AI agent: it reads your personal planning from Obsidian and turns it into tasks, projects or wiki pages in Orkestra.

  • Daily note → tasks — "Turn today's daily note checkboxes into tasks in project X assigned to me."
  • Research → team wiki — "Take this research note and publish it as a wiki page in the Product area."
  • Planning → sprint — "From the plan I wrote in planning/Q2.md, create the matching epics and tasks in Orkestra."
  • Status update — "Summarize my last 7 daily notes and post it as a status update on project Y."

The pattern

No plugin required. Any MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, OpenClaw) can connect two MCP servers at the same time: one pointing to your local vault, the other to Orkestra. The agent blends both contexts in a single session.

  • Local vault — MCP filesystem server pointing to your vault folder (read-only recommended, writes optional).
  • Orkestra — Orkestra MCP server with your API token (standard setup described in MCP & AI agents and AI Agents).

Setup with Claude Desktop

First follow the Claude Desktop guide to add Orkestra as an MCP server (generate token + edit claude_desktop_config.json). Then, in the same file, add the official MCP filesystem server pointing to your vault. Both entries live under mcpServers.

Keys to use:

  • Filesystem server: npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem /path/to/your/vault. This is the official reference server.
  • Permissions: the filesystem server respects the path you give it. Don't give it your entire home — point it only to the vault.
  • Restart Claude Desktop after editing the config.

If your vault has subfolders with private material (accounts, contracts, personal journals), use a separate vault or point the filesystem server to a narrower subfolder such as vault/orkestra-scratch. The agent only sees what you give it.

Other MCP clients

  • Cursor / Windsurf — native MCP support. Same pattern: two entries, one filesystem and one Orkestra remote (Streamable HTTP, https://mcp.orkestra.team).
  • OpenClaw / HermesAgent — if you already configured Orkestra there (see AI Agents), add the filesystem server to the same config file using the same syntax.
  • Plugins inside Obsidian — community plugins (obsidian-mcp-tools, obsidian-mcp-plugin) bring MCP tools into the Obsidian UI. If you prefer not to leave the app, they're an alternative to an external client. Orkestra does not maintain or certify them; use at your own risk.

Example prompts

  • "Open projects/v2-launch.md from my vault and create the tasks with their dates in the 'V2 Launch' project in Orkestra. Assign the ones tagged @me to me."
  • "Summarize today's daily note (daily/2026-04-17.md) and post it as a comment on task ORK-1234."
  • "Search my vault for notes tagged #competitor-research and create a wiki page with the digest in the Product area."

What this integration doesn't do

To set expectations: there is no automatic two-way sync between the vault and Orkestra. The agent acts as a manual bridge — reading one side and writing the other when you ask. If you want to mirror content without intervention (e.g. every edit in vault/wiki/ reflected in Orkestra), that requires a dedicated plugin — not available today. If you're interested, let us know.

Security considerations

  • The Orkestra MCP token has the same permissions as your user. Use one per device and revoke unused ones.
  • Write operations go through preview/confirm — the agent does not execute without your explicit OK.
  • The MCP filesystem server reads local files without filtering. If you left credentials in a vault note, the agent will see them when you ask it to search.
  • If you work with a synced vault (Obsidian Sync, iCloud, Dropbox), keep in mind that other devices may modify files while the agent reads them.

Resources