New Plugin

New Obsidian Plugin

Scaffold a new Obsidian plugin in the monorepo at plugins/<name>/ with all required files, dependencies, and vault symlink.

Workflow

Step 1: Gather Inputs

Use AskUserQuestion to collect:

• Plugin name (kebab-case, prefix with obsidian- if not already)
• Short description (one sentence for manifest.json)

Step 2: Create Files

Create all files under plugins/<name>/:

plugins/<name>/
  src/
    main.ts
  public/
    manifest.json
    styles.css
  package.json
  tsconfig.json
  vite.config.ts

Step 3: File Templates

Derive these values from the plugin name:

• <name>: the kebab-case plugin name (e.g. obsidian-my-plugin)
• <ClassName>: PascalCase without "obsidian" prefix + "Plugin" suffix (e.g. obsidian-my-plugin -> MyPlugin)
• <Display Name>: Title case without "obsidian-" prefix (e.g. obsidian-my-plugin -> My Plugin)

package.json

{
  "name": "<name>",
  "private": true,
  "scripts": {
    "build": "vite build --mode production",
    "dev": "vite build --watch --mode development"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@types/node": "catalog:",
    "obsidian": "catalog:",
    "obsidian-vite-config": "workspace:*",
    "tslib": "catalog:",
    "typescript": "catalog:",
    "vite": "catalog:"
  }
}

vite.config.ts

import { createObsidianViteConfig } from 'obsidian-vite-config';
import { defineConfig } from 'vite';

export default defineConfig(({ mode }) =>
  createObsidianViteConfig({ prod: mode === 'production' })
);

tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "inlineSourceMap": true,
    "inlineSources": true,
    "module": "ESNext",
    "target": "ES6",
    "allowJs": true,
    "noImplicitAny": true,
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "importHelpers": true,
    "isolatedModules": true,
    "strictNullChecks": true,
    "lib": ["DOM", "ES5", "ES6", "ES7"]
  },
  "include": ["**/*.ts"],
  "types": ["obsidian-typings"]
}

src/main.ts

import { Plugin } from 'obsidian';

export default class <ClassName> extends Plugin {
  async onload() {
    // Plugin loaded
  }

  onunload() {
    // Cleanup
  }
}

public/manifest.json

{
  "id": "<name>",
  "name": "<Display Name>",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "minAppVersion": "0.15.0",
  "description": "<description>",
  "author": "Josh Medeski",
  "authorUrl": "https://www.joshmedeski.com",
  "fundingUrl": "https://www.joshmedeski.com",
  "isDesktopOnly": false
}

public/styles.css

/* <Display Name> Styles */

Step 4: Create Vault Folder and Symlink

Create the vault plugin folder (the real directory), then symlink the plugin's build/ to it so vite writes output directly into the vault:

mkdir -p ~/c/second-brain/.obsidian/plugins/<name>
ln -s ~/c/second-brain/.obsidian/plugins/<name> /Users/joshmedeski/c/ob/main/plugins/<name>/build

Step 5: Install and Build

Run from the monorepo root (/Users/joshmedeski/c/ob/main/):

pnpm install
pnpm --filter <name> build

Step 6: Confirm

Report to the user:

• Files created
• Build succeeded
• Symlink created
• Next steps: run pnpm --filter <name> dev to start development