Obsidian Git Sync

A dockerised, self-hostable host that runs an Obsidian vault headlessly and serves it to MCP clients, with pluggable sync (git first).

It writes the vault filesystem directly, through the upstream obsidian-web-mcp server, so it is headless, containerisable, and sync-agnostic. That is the difference from the common Obsidian MCP servers that drive the Obsidian desktop app via its Local REST API plugin: those need a running desktop, a GUI session, and the plugin. This one needs none of that — it serves a vault on disk, mirrors history to git as a backup and audit trail, and (optionally) keeps human devices in step via Obsidian Sync.

Architecture

The process is the upstream obsidian-web-mcp server with an in-process GitSyncExtension loaded through its extension seam (serve([ext])). The extension classifies vault changes into two event streams and funnels them to a single git worker:

• MCP writes — files the upstream server writes on behalf of an MCP client, committed with mcp: messages.
• Sweeps — a .md change watcher plus a periodic timer that walks the whole tree (catching attachments and canvas the .md watcher cannot see), committed with sync: messages.

One git worker thread performs all git work: stage, commit, then a debounced local-wins rebase and push. MCP-written files can optionally have their frontmatter timestamp stamped before commit.

The Docker stack is two containers: an always-on mcp service, and an optional obsidian-sync sidecar (opt-in via a Compose profile) that runs Obsidian Headless Sync against the same vault working tree.

Quickstart

This boots the mcp service with git sync disabled — no git working tree required yet. Enabling sync needs a bootstrapped vault repo (see below).

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env: set VAULT_HOST_PATH (host path to your vault), VAULT_PATH
# (its path inside the container), and a strong VAULT_MCP_TOKEN.
docker compose up -d            # mcp service only

Copied as-is, git sync is disabled — a safe, bootable no-op. Before turning it on, bootstrap the vault git repo (next section).

Every variable is annotated in .env.example, the configuration source of truth.

Git repo bootstrap

The worker commits against an existing git working tree — it never runs git init or git clone for you. And startup is fail-closed: with VAULT_GIT_ENABLED=true, the mcp container refuses to boot if VAULT_PATH is not a git working tree, or if VAULT_GIT_REMOTE names a remote the tree does not have. So you must seed the repo before enabling git sync.

VAULT_HOST_PATH can be any host path — ./vault, /srv/obsidian/vault, a deployment run directory. Whatever you set, that is where you clone.

1. Clone your vault into VAULT_HOST_PATH on the host:

git clone <your-vault-remote> ./vault   # match VAULT_HOST_PATH

2. Give the vault a push credential — pick one:

• VAULT_GIT_TOKEN (recommended). Set the token as a single env var; a credential helper hands it to git at push time, so it is never written to the vault's .git/config and never appears on a git command line. Use a tokenless remote URL; rotate by changing the one value and redeploying.

  git -C ./vault remote set-url origin https://github.com/<org>/<repo>.git
  # then in .env:
  VAULT_GIT_TOKEN=<TOKEN>
  

• SSH deploy key. Put the key at ./secrets/deploy_key (chmod 600), set an SSH remote, and uncomment the key mount + GIT_SSH_COMMAND in docker-compose.yml.

  git -C ./vault remote set-url origin [email protected]:<org>/<repo>.git
  

• Token embedded in the https remote (discouraged). Writes the token in plaintext into the vault's .git/config on the volume, where anything that echoes the remote leaks it and rotation means editing a file inside the volume. Prefer VAULT_GIT_TOKEN.

  git -C ./vault remote set-url origin \
    https://x-access-token:<TOKEN>@github.com/<org>/<repo>.git
  

3. Give the worker a commit identity. Git refuses to commit without one, so without an identity every commit fails (you'll see git-worker sweep commit failed (rc=128) and nothing is committed or pushed). Either set VAULT_GIT_GIT_AUTHOR_NAME + VAULT_GIT_GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL in .env, or configure user.name/user.email in the vault's own git config.

4. Enable git sync in .env and (re)deploy:

VAULT_GIT_ENABLED=true
VAULT_GIT_REMOTE=origin     # or leave empty for commit-only (local backup, never pushes)

docker compose up -d

Ordering with the obsidian-sync sidecar: bootstrap the git tree first (it establishes the working tree + remote), then run the one-time ob bootstrap against the same /vault (see obsidian-sync/README.md). And set the push credential before the sidecar first syncs content down — otherwise the initial (large) push fails and commits pile up retrying locally.

Named volumes (orchestrators)

The steps above assume VAULT_HOST_PATH is a host directory you clone into. If instead the vault is a Docker named volume (e.g. a Komodo/Compose stack with volumes: [vault]), you can't clone on the host — and a fresh named volume mounts root-owned, so the container's non-root user (uid 10001) can't commit. Seed it with a one-off container that clones and fixes ownership:

docker run --rm -v <stack>_vault:/vault <mcp-image> \
  sh -c 'git clone https://x-access-token:<TOKEN>@github.com/<org>/<repo>.git /vault \
         && git -C /vault remote set-url origin https://github.com/<org>/<repo>.git \
         && chown -R 10001:10001 /vault'

The remote set-url resets the remote to a tokenless URL so the one-off clone token does not persist in the volume's .git/config; set VAULT_GIT_TOKEN for the ongoing pushes. Then enable git sync and deploy as above. (The obsidian-sync image avoids this for its own config volume by pre-creating the dir — the vault volume has no such fix.)

docker-compose.yml declares this as the vault named volume; set VAULT_HOST_PATH to a bare name (no /, e.g. vault) to select it instead of a host path.

Configuration

Upstream server (VAULT_*)

These belong to the upstream obsidian-web-mcp server; the deployment needs them.

Variable	Default	Meaning
VAULT_PATH	/vault	Path to the vault git working tree inside the container.
VAULT_HOST_PATH	./vault	Host path mapped to VAULT_PATH (Compose-only).
VAULT_MCP_TOKEN	—	Bearer token MCP clients must present. Required; set a strong random value.
VAULT_MCP_PORT	8420	Port the MCP transport listens on (and the port Compose publishes).
VAULT_MCP_HOST	0.0.0.0	Bind address. Must bind all interfaces inside a container to be reachable.
VAULT_MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS	—	Extra hostnames allowed through DNS-rebinding protection (comma-separated). Add your proxy/tunnel hostname.
VAULT_MCP_PUBLIC_URL	—	Canonical public origin advertised in OAuth discovery and auth challenges. Empty = derive per request.
VAULT_OAUTH_*	see .env.example	Optional OAuth (client id/secret, login gate, redirect URIs) for the Claude app browser integration.

Git-sync extension (VAULT_GIT_*)

Disabled by default. Set VAULT_GIT_ENABLED truthy to turn the extension on, then review the rest.

Variable	Default	Meaning
VAULT_GIT_ENABLED	(empty / off)	Master switch. true/1/yes/on enables; anything else disables.
VAULT_GIT_SWEEP_INTERVAL	60	Seconds between periodic full-tree sweeps. Positive integer.
VAULT_GIT_REMOTE	origin	Remote to push to. Empty = commit-only (local backup, never pushes).
VAULT_GIT_BRANCH	(empty)	Branch to push. Empty = the working tree's current branch.
VAULT_GIT_TOKEN	(empty)	HTTPS push credential, supplied to git at push time by a credential helper (never written to .git/config, never on a command line). Required for a tokenless HTTPS remote — startup fails closed without it; not needed for SSH or an embedded-credential URL.
VAULT_GIT_PUSH_DEBOUNCE	10	Seconds the event queue must be quiet before the worker pushes batched commits. Positive number.
VAULT_GIT_PUSH_MAX_INTERVAL	300	Upper bound (seconds) on time since last push, so sustained activity still pushes periodically. Positive number.
VAULT_GIT_GIT_AUTHOR_NAME	(empty)	Commit author name. Empty = git's configured identity.
VAULT_GIT_GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL	(empty)	Commit author email. Empty = git's configured identity.
VAULT_GIT_STAMP	(empty / on)	Frontmatter timestamp stamping. On by default; a falsey value (0/false/no/off) commits MCP-written files unstamped.
VAULT_GIT_HEARTBEAT_URL	(empty)	Optional http(s) URL pinged after each successful push. Empty = disabled; never fires in commit-only mode.

Obsidian Sync sidecar

The optional obsidian-sync sidecar runs Obsidian Headless Sync against the same vault working tree, so a device edit synced down lands on disk where the git-sync sweep commits it. It is opt-in via the Compose obsidian profile (docker compose --profile obsidian up -d) and needs a one-time interactive bootstrap that requires a real Obsidian account login. See obsidian-sync/README.md for the bootstrap.

Exposure

Compose publishes only the MCP port; nothing else is exposed to the host. No tunnel is baked into the project. For remote access, put a reverse proxy, Cloudflare Tunnel, or Tailscale in front of the published port, then:

• add the public hostname to VAULT_MCP_ALLOWED_HOSTS (so DNS-rebinding protection lets it through), and
• set VAULT_MCP_PUBLIC_URL to the canonical public origin (so OAuth discovery and auth challenges are pinned against Host spoofing).

Do not expose the published port directly to the internet.

Monitoring

Three independent layers, each answering a different question:

• Container healthcheck — a dependency-free TCP connect to the MCP port, baked into the image HEALTHCHECK (so docker compose ps reports health). Answers: is the port accepting connections?
• Upstream liveness heartbeat (VAULT_MCP_HEARTBEAT_URL) — the upstream server's outbound liveness ping. Answers: is the server process alive?
• Git-sync push heartbeat (VAULT_GIT_HEARTBEAT_URL) — fired by the worker after each successful push. Answers: is sync actually reaching the remote? (Never fires in commit-only mode.)

Development

uv sync --extra dev
uv run pytest

This project consumes the upstream obsidian-web-mcp server and contributes changes upstream rather than forking it. It loads through the upstream extension seam (PR #57) and uses the write listener on the feat/write-listener branch (PR #62); until that merges, the dependency is pinned to that git branch in pyproject.toml and will be repinned to a released version once it lands.

Development is spec-driven via OpenSpec — proposals, designs, and specs live under openspec/.

Licence

MIT — see LICENSE.