smart-connections

Smart Connections MCP Server

A security-first MCP server for Smart Connections. Read-only. Path-validated. Auditable.

Exposes Smart Connections embeddings to Claude Code and other MCP clients for semantic search of your Obsidian vault.

Why This Exists

We needed semantic search of our Obsidian vault from Claude Code. Existing options have problems:

• No path validation - User input passed directly to file operations
• Write access - Some expose mutation tools we don't need
• Heavy dependencies - PyTorch/transformers for what's essentially vector math

This implementation:

• Minimal dependencies - MCP SDK + Transformers.js (for text search)
• Fail-closed security - path validation with realpath, symlink detection
• Auditable - small TypeScript codebase you can actually read

Features

• Text search - query with plain text, not just note paths
• Semantic search using Smart Connections embeddings
• Local inference - uses Transformers.js (same model as Smart Connections)
• Read-only - no write operations, no shell execution
• Secure - strict path validation, bounded responses
• Offline - works without Obsidian running

Security Model

Property	Guarantee
Path confinement	All file access validated against vault root
No traversal	../ and symlink attacks blocked
Read-only	No write operations exposed
Bounded responses	Capped results (50), content length (10KB)
Fail closed	Errors deny access, never bypass
Audit logging	Security events logged with context

Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• Obsidian with Smart Connections plugin installed
• Embeddings built (open vault in Obsidian, let Smart Connections index)

Setup

git clone https://github.com/gogogadgetbytes/smart-connections-mcp
cd smart-connections-mcp
npm install
npm run build

Configure Claude Code

Add to your Claude Code config:

claude mcp add smart-connections \
  -e VAULT_PATH="/path/to/your/obsidian/vault" \
  -- node /path/to/smart-connections-mcp/dist/index.js

Or manually add to ~/.claude.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smart-connections": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/smart-connections-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "VAULT_PATH": "/path/to/your/obsidian/vault"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Code to load the server.

Usage

Once configured, Claude Code can use these tools:

Search by Text

"Search my vault for notes about backup strategies"
→ Uses search_by_text tool

Search Similar Notes

"Find notes similar to Topics/Claude_Code.md"
→ Uses search_similar tool

Get Note Content

"Show me the content of Topics/Obsidian.md"
→ Uses get_note tool

List Indexed Notes

"What notes are indexed in my vault?"
→ Uses list_indexed tool

Tools

Tool	Description
search_by_text	Search using freeform text (computes embedding locally)
search_similar	Find notes semantically similar to a given note
search_by_embedding	Search using a raw embedding vector
get_note	Get content of a specific note (path validated)
get_model_info	Get embedding model configuration
list_indexed	List all indexed notes

Configuration

Variable	Required	Description
VAULT_PATH	Yes	Absolute path to Obsidian vault

Limitations

• Single vault - Configure one vault per MCP server instance
• Index from Smart Connections - Note embeddings come from the plugin; text queries are embedded locally
• No write access - By design; use Obsidian for edits
• First run downloads model - ~50MB model cached in ~/.cache/huggingface/

Development

# Build
npm run build

# Test with MCP Inspector
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/index.js

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. Security-focused PRs welcome.

Security

To report security vulnerabilities, please email [email protected]. Do not open public issues for security concerns.

License

MIT - see LICENSE

Credits

• Smart Connections by Brian Petro
• Model Context Protocol by Anthropic