What is Seekstone?
Seekstone, by the developer Shaq Mughal, gives an MCP client read and write access to an Obsidian vault by reading the Markdown files directly, so neither the Obsidian app nor the Local REST API plugin has to run. It keeps a full-text index in memory, watches the folder for edits, and offers 25 tools: 14 for search, structured frontmatter queries, tasks, links and periodic notes, and 11 that create, edit, move, delete or undo. Semantic search is optional and runs on a small local embedding model of about 30 MB.
The project is MIT-licensed TypeScript, started in May 2026, and had about 35 GitHub stars and six contributors when checked. It ships often: version 0.24.0 came out on 11 November 2026, five days after 0.23.0. The npm package was downloaded 1,353 times in the week to 12 November 2026.
How to install Seekstone
npx -y seekstone initIs Seekstone worth it?
The design choice that matters is skipping Obsidian itself. Most Obsidian MCP servers talk to the Local REST API plugin, which means the app has to be running and every search hit comes back as a full note. Seekstone reads the files on disk and returns ranked excerpts of about 120 characters. In the author's benchmark on a 10,000-note vault built from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, a search returned 2.0 KB and took 5.6 ms warm, against 47 KB and 732 ms for cyanheads' obsidian-mcp-server. The vaults and harness are in the repository so anyone can rerun them, but no independent reproduction has been published.
The write side is more considered than the category usually manages. Before any of the 11 write tools changes a file, Seekstone stores a copy of what it is about to replace under .seekstone/history inside the vault, so undo_write can restore it byte for byte, including a note deleted with permanent set. Edits can carry a content hash and fail if the note changed in the meantime, and an optional audit file logs every write with hashes but no note text. The journal is capped at 50 MB by default and the oldest entries are dropped first.
Security is the part to configure before first use. By default the agent can read every note in the vault and write, move or delete any of them; Seekstone runs no code from the vault and makes no network calls once running, but whatever it reads is sent to your model provider. SEEKSTONE_READ_ONLY=1 removes the write tools, SEEKSTONE_READ_PATHS hides folders such as a journal completely, and SEEKSTONE_WRITE_PATHS limits edits to, say, an inbox. The history folder sits inside the vault, so a sync service will copy those snapshots too.
The catch: this is a project started in May 2026, with about 35 stars, built and benchmarked by one main author, and its README is written as a sales sheet. Full tool definitions cost about 5,742 tokens per session, or 3,261 in read-only mode. It reads Obsidian's config for daily notes but does not run Obsidian plugins, so Dataview queries and other plugin output are invisible to it.
Our take: for a personal vault you already back up, this is the Obsidian server to start with in read-only mode, opening the write tools only for one inbox folder once you trust it.
Where it earns its place
A consultant with a 6,000-note Obsidian vault of client research
Ask Claude what the notes say about a client before a call, without pasting files in
Install the seekstone.mcpb bundle, set SEEKSTONE_READ_ONLY=1 and hide the personal folders with SEEKSTONE_READ_PATHS. The agent searches and reads sections only; it costs nothing beyond model tokens, and those excerpts still go to the model provider.
A product manager who keeps daily notes and task checkboxes in Obsidian
Collect open tasks from the week and append a standup summary to today's note
list_tasks returns one row per checkbox and append_periodic_note writes to today's note from the vault's own daily-note settings. Limit writes to the daily folder with SEEKSTONE_WRITE_PATHS; undo_write reverts a bad append.
A PhD student reorganising a vault before writing up
Rename headings and move notes into new folders without breaking links
move_note and rename_heading rewrite the wikilinks that point at the old names across the vault. Try one folder first and check list_writes; each change is journalled under .seekstone/history and can be rolled back.
Before you commit
- Setup
- Double-click seekstone.mcpb in Claude Desktop and pick the vault, or run npx -y seekstone init, which finds vaults from Obsidian's own registry and patches the client config with a backup. Needs Node.js 22 or later outside the bundle. The index builds in a few seconds for thousands of notes.
- Integrations
- Any stdio MCP client; the README covers Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf and Cline. 25 tools: search, query_notes, context_pack, read_note, list_tasks, backlinks and links, periodic notes, and 11 write tools including move_note, patch_frontmatter and undo_write.
- Data and privacy
- Reads and writes Markdown files under SEEKSTONE_VAULT with your user permissions; no telemetry and no network calls while running. The optional fetch-model command downloads the embedding model once. Pre-write copies are stored in the vault's .seekstone/history folder. Note text the agent reads goes to your model provider.
- Cost at scale
- Free. The running cost is context: about 5,742 tokens of tool definitions per session, or 3,261 with read-only mode, plus the excerpts and notes the agent reads.
- Limits
- Semantic search embeds a 10,000-note vault in about 30 seconds after boot, then caches it. Native file watching can miss changes on network drives and WSL, where a polling mode is offered.
What’s good
- Works with Obsidian closed and no plugin installed
- Short ranked excerpts keep search results to about 2 KB
- Every write is journalled and can be undone
- Read-only mode and per-folder read and write limits
What’s not
- Young project with one main author and about 35 stars
- Benchmarks are the author's own
- Write access to the whole vault unless you restrict it
- Cannot see output from Obsidian plugins such as Dataview
Best for
Obsidian users who want Claude or Cursor to search and tidy a local vault without keeping the app open, and who will set read and write limits first.
Seekstone alternatives
Seekstone: common questions
- Is Seekstone worth it?
- A careful, fast way to let an agent search and edit an Obsidian vault without the app open, from a young one-person project whose speed claims are its own. We rate it 3.8 out of 5.
- How much does Seekstone cost?
- Free and open source (MIT). The author takes donations; there is no paid tier.
- What are the downsides of Seekstone?
- Young project with one main author and about 35 stars; benchmarks are the author's own; write access to the whole vault unless you restrict it; cannot see output from Obsidian plugins such as Dataview.
- Who is Seekstone best for?
- Obsidian users who want Claude or Cursor to search and tidy a local vault without keeping the app open, and who will set read and write limits first.
- How much does Seekstone cost for a team or in production?
- Free. The running cost is context: about 5,742 tokens of tool definitions per session, or 3,261 with read-only mode, plus the excerpts and notes the agent reads.
- Is Seekstone safe for company data?
- Reads and writes Markdown files under SEEKSTONE_VAULT with your user permissions; no telemetry and no network calls while running. The optional fetch-model command downloads the embedding model once. Pre-write copies are stored in the vault's .seekstone/history folder. Note text the agent reads goes to your model provider.
- What are the best Seekstone alternatives?
- The closest alternatives we have reviewed are Filesystem (reference server) and Memory (reference server).
Answers checked Nov 13, 2026.