Vault Cortex

What is Vault Cortex?

Vault Cortex gives any MCP client — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode — full access to your Obsidian vault. Search notes, read and write content, query and update tasks, explore the link graph, manage structured memory with topic recall, and resolve daily notes — all through a single Docker container.

The typical Obsidian + MCP setup needs three moving parts running at once: Obsidian open → Local REST API plugin → a separate MCP server wrapping that API. vault-cortex replaces all of it with Docker and your vault folder.

Features

• Plugin-free — Obsidian doesn't need to be running; the server works directly with .md files on disk, and headless Obsidian Sync keeps the vault current.
• Remote access — use it from your phone, a remote server, or any MCP client via OAuth 2.1.
• Hybrid search — FTS5 keyword matching + vector semantic similarity + cross-encoder reranking via RRF fusion. Keywords stay precise; vectors bridge vocabulary gaps; the reranker rescues intent-heavy queries.
• Structured memory — dated entries with section targeting and auto-initialization, for persistent AI personalization.
• Obsidian-native — understands frontmatter, wikilinks, tags, headings, and daily notes.
• Task management — vault-wide task index parsing both Tasks-plugin emoji and Dataview inline-field formats. Query by status, dates, priority, folder, or Kanban lane. Complete, reprioritize, and move tasks between lanes in one call.
• Link graph — backlinks, outgoing links, and orphan detection.
• Files — read the vault's non-markdown files too: images arrive as actual images (shrunk to fit when needed), canvases as readable outlines, PDFs as extracted text, data files verbatim.

Tools

• Vault CRUD — vault_read_note, vault_write_note, vault_patch_note, vault_replace_in_note, vault_delete_span, vault_list_notes, vault_delete_note, vault_move_note, vault_update_properties
• Search — vault_search, vault_search_by_tag, vault_search_by_folder, vault_search_by_property, vault_recent_notes, vault_list_tags, vault_list_property_keys, vault_list_property_values, vault_find_orphans, vault_get_backlinks, vault_get_outgoing_links
• Tasks — vault_list_tasks, vault_update_task
• Memory — vault_get_memory, vault_update_memory, vault_delete_memory, vault_list_memory_files, vault_memory_recall
• Files — vault_read_file, vault_list_files
• Daily Notes — vault_get_daily_note

Prompts

• vault-orientation — surveys vault stats, folder distribution, property adoption, orphans, tags, recent notes, and the memory layer
• memory-review — structural overview + dated timeline of the memory layer with guided reflection
• daily-review — reviews a day's daily note with outgoing links, backlinks, and date-specific activity

Quick Start

Local (2 minutes — Docker + your vault folder)

Prerequisites: Docker, Node.js >= 24, and an Obsidian vault.

npx vault-cortex@latest init

Local guide →

Remote (access from anywhere)

• One-click deploy to Render
• One-click deploy to Railway
• Self-host on a VPS with Obsidian Sync

Authentication

• OAuth 2.1 (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, claude.ai) — dynamic client registration, JWT access tokens, 60-day sliding refresh.
• Static bearer (Claude Code, MCP Inspector, curl) — the raw MCP_AUTH_TOKEN.

Links

• Repository: https://github.com/aliasunder/vault-cortex
• Docker image: ghcr.io/aliasunder/vault-cortex
• CLI: npx vault-cortex@latest init
• License: MIT