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Obsidian Sync now has a headless client

help.obsidian.md

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Re: Obsidian Sync now has a headless client

#161

Post by beart »

RyanShook wrote: post #64

What’s the best way to sync Obsidian without upgrading to their paid tier?

There is a self-hosted live sync plugin. It's rough around the edges but it mostly works and is actively maintained, if you are willing to self-host a sync server.

I say mostly works, because there are a lot of "gotchas" and the configuration and set up are a bit intimidating for the clients (the server is simple to host).

I used it for a while and it was fine, but I decided the cost of a coffee per month is worth not having to maintain it, and I switched to paying for their sync service.

However, there is also a git sync plugin that works really nicely. But it is not a real-time sync and it is not supported on mobile (officially). I mainly use that as a way to keep long running backups of my vaults in a self-hosted gitea instance (the default paid tier only keeps one month of history).

Re: Obsidian Sync now has a headless client

#162

Post by radlad »

kepano wrote: post #48
8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there plans to support scoped token permissions (specific folders or even specific notes)? I'd love to try setting up something that automatically updates a specific Obsidian note on a state change or cronjob, but I'd want to avoid giving access to the rest of the vault. also, thanks for the great product, bought the vip catalyst as a show of support.

Thanks for your support! Sync is end-to-end encrypted so the server doesn't know about specific paths in your vault. You would have to set those permissions at the filesystem level, or with the tool you're using.

I'm not sure how to make it work but like others in this thread I have an interest in sharing some - but not all - of my notes with some AI agents. Would love a solution that is built in to Obsidian / Obsidian Sync.

Re: Obsidian Sync now has a headless client

#163

Post by wiether »

febed wrote: post #155
wiether wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsidian is plain Markdown and JSON files. There can't be a will from the devs to make it hard to sync. It's just that unlike git or Dropbox or whatever, that are just generic "syncing" tools, Obsidian Sync has been built to provide the best experience with Obsidian.

I’ve been using Obsidian with Dropbox sync for years. What’s so special about the Obsidian sync?

Obsidian with Dropbox can work on an iOS device?

With Obsidian Sync you manage everything directly in Obsidian: sync status, activity, history, selective sync...

And "it just works" across platform, without having to think about/set something else up.

Re: Obsidian Sync now has a headless client

#166

Post by 4diii »

wiether wrote: post #42
FloatArtifact wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wonder if that's by design to make it hard for a plugin to have it's own sync mechanism. Definitely not proof of this that I know of, but a thought.

Obsidian is plain Markdown and JSON files. There can't be a will from the devs to make it hard to sync. It's just that unlike git or Dropbox or whatever, that are just generic "syncing" tools, Obsidian Sync has been built to provide the best experience with Obsidian.

someone reverse engineered obsidian sync a couple years ago, but obsidian ended up “patching” it. Saw some recent discussion on here about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44768641

Re: Obsidian Sync now has a headless client

#167

Post by neutralx »

corysama wrote: post #12

Also new: Obsidian joins the CLI gang https://help.obsidian.md/cli I’ve been having a lot of fun recently using AI CLIs with Obsidian. No plugins necessary because it’s just a directory tree of markdown files.

This got me thinking if it’s possible to use Obsidian as taskwarrior. I’ve used taskwarrior in the past but it’s CLI interface which is fine for simpler tasks. Lately, I’ve been trying to use Obsidian as task manager and addition of Bases paved path for taskwarrior like usage, but in GUI. Having options to use it as CLI and as GUI offers flexibility.

I also used some plugins like bugwarrior to sync Jira/GitHub tickets locally. This is perfect when working on multiple projects/repos.

But I guess moving from Unix one tool for each job to swiss knife tool makes Obsidian overwhelming. Maybe it’s better to bridge these two tools in some way (plugins) rather than misuse Obsidian features.

Re: Obsidian Sync now has a headless client

#168

Post by wellthisisgreat »

wiether wrote: post #163
febed wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using Obsidian with Dropbox sync for years. What’s so special about the Obsidian sync?

Obsidian with Dropbox can work on an iOS device? With Obsidian Sync you manage everything directly in Obsidian: sync status, activity, history, selective sync... And "it just works" across platform, without having to think about/set something else up.

it's not per-vault is it? I have multiple vaults I'd like to sync selectively (50% of files in one vault for one machine, and 100% on another etc.) No space restrictions?

Re: Obsidian Sync now has a headless client

#169

Post by haltcatchfire »

vergessenmir wrote: post #40
manmal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using iCloud to sync Obsidian, and have consistently run into the problem that iCloud file container access needs full disk permissions that I don't want to give the agent (or Ghostty). Does everybody use Obsidian's paid sync instead or what? Or SyncThing?

Just pay for the sync. I used to juggle with git, rsync, inotify etc and other tools Its one of the few subscriptions where it actually feels like money well spent

I try to selfhost most of my stuff I rely on. Immich, Vaultwarden, etc. I gave up on trying to selfhost sync solutions for Obsidian - Obsidian Sync is just so damn frictionless compared to all other solutions. Also, it feels good supporting the development of Obsidian.

Re: Obsidian Sync now has a headless client

#170

Post by batisteo »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #60
vergessenmir wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just pay for the sync. I used to juggle with git, rsync, inotify etc and other tools Its one of the few subscriptions where it actually feels like money well spent

I was using SyncThing, and it worked, but any time you have an Obsidian vault open on two devices, or shortly after another, you're always thinking about if you're going to have to clean up a bunch of sync conflict files later. And that mental overhead is not worth saving $4/mo. The conflicts are never hard: it's like a git merge conflict where you just take the latest of every conflict block.

For me using SyncThing totally worth it, but I guess it's down to our income difference
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