RAGOpen SourceFreeActiveMachine-verified· intermediate · ~10 min setup

Obsidian × MCPVault: The Argument Builder

Give Claude a thesis and have it assemble a sourced, ranked argument from everything you've ever written.

by Shilpa Mitra· verified 13d ago· v1.0.0

Run this workflow

CI-verified, 3/3 fixtures passing.

Intended Use

Anyone writing to persuade who wants Claude to pull supporting evidence from the whole vault (BM25-ranked search_notes + read_multiple_notes) into a structured argument with the strongest evidence first and links back to sources.

Not for

  • Thin vaults with little to draw on
  • People who won't install Claude Desktop

The Stack

Claude DesktopagentMCPVaultconnectorObsidianmemory

Tested Against

mcpvault@latestclaude-desktopnode@20.xobsidian@1.7.x

Side effects & data flow

Network
Anthropic API, only in the non-CI Claude step
Writes
./vault/Arguments/, claude_desktop_config.json
Credentials
Claude Desktop login, for the assembly step only

Data privacy

  • Anthropic (Claude), only in the non-CI agent step ← the thesis and the notes it ranks as evidence (retention: per Anthropic's API/data policy)

Prerequisites

  • Claude Desktop, https://claude.ai/download
  • Node 20+ (MCPVault runs via npx)
  • A vault with enough notes to argue from

Steps

  1. 1

    Validate config and scaffold the Arguments/ folder

    CI validates the MCPVault config and creates the Arguments/ target the assembled case is written to.

    cat > claude_desktop_config.json <<'EOF'
{ "mcpServers": { "obsidian": { "command": "npx", "args": ["@bitbonsai/mcpvault@latest", "/Users/you/Documents/MyVault"] } } }
EOF
node -e 'const c=JSON.parse(require("fs").readFileSync("claude_desktop_config.json","utf8"));const o=c.mcpServers.obsidian;if(o.command==="npx"&&o.args.some(a=>a.indexOf("@bitbonsai/mcpvault")===0)){console.log("config OK: npx -> @bitbonsai/mcpvault")}else{console.log("BAD");process.exit(1)}'
mkdir -p vault/Arguments
test -d vault/Arguments && echo "arguments ready: vault/Arguments/"
  2. 2

    Assemble the argument (the Claude step, not checked by CI)

    Give Claude your thesis and have it search the whole vault for evidence, organize it strongest-first, and save Arguments/<thesis>.md with links back to each source. Uses BM25-ranked search_notes + read_multiple_notes; runs a model, so CI doesn't run it.

Eval, 3 fixtures

Last passed: verified 13d ago
  • config-validcontainstimeout 30s · max $0

    Expected: config OK: npx -> @bitbonsai/mcpvault

  • arguments-readycontainstimeout 30s · max $0

    Expected: arguments ready: vault/Arguments/

  • clean-exitexit_codetimeout 30s · max $0

    Expected: 0

Results

Where the BM25-ranked search earns its keep, from the WebAfterAI Part 2 guide.

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