Obsidian Canvas Boards

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Creating a new canvas board for a project in an Obsidian vault
• Adding vault notes, media or links to an existing .canvas file
• Checking a canvas for broken edges or missing file targets
• Laying out groups and zones as a visual map

Example prompts

• “Create a canvas for my thesis research with groups for sources, methods and open questions.”
• “Add the notes in wiki/concepts to the main canvas as file nodes.”
• “Check the status of my canvases and report any broken edges.”
• “Put this article link on the canvas as a text node instead of a link node.”

Requirements

• An Obsidian vault
• The claude-obsidian plugin installed, including its `scripts/claude-obsidian.py` core

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Read the entire canvas and any catalog target. Record each expected SHA-256,
2. 2Preserve unknown JSON fields and existing array order. The node array is
3. 3Draft the requested nodes or edges
4. 4Position new content deliberately. A group is a visual container, not a
5. 5Serialize valid UTF-8 JSON with top-level nodes and edges arrays.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 32ac5a0. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • python3

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

  • jsoncanvas.org

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Obsidian Canvas Boards loads about 1.4k tokens when it runs, and up to ~3.6k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 77 tokens; SKILL.md has 620 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~77

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.4k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~3.6k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from AgriciDaniel/claude-obsidian at commit 32ac5a0, republished under its MIT licence (© AgriciDaniel). 620 words, ~1,360 tokens.

name

canvas

description

Create, inspect, and update Obsidian JSON Canvas boards with text, file, link, group, and edge nodes. Use for canvas status, canvas lists, visual maps, zones, spatial layouts, adding vault notes or media to a .canvas file, and requests such as create canvas, add to canvas, or put this on the canvas.

PRODUCT_ROOT=/absolute/path/to/installed/claude-obsidian
CORE="$PRODUCT_ROOT/scripts/claude-obsidian.py"
test -f "$CORE"

{
  "nodes": [
    {
      "id": "6f0ad84f44ce9c17",
      "type": "text",
      "text": "# Research map\n\nA concise orientation card.",
      "x": 0,
      "y": 0,
      "width": 400,
      "height": 180
    },
    {
      "id": "a1b2c3d4e5f67890",
      "type": "file",
      "file": "wiki/concepts/Contextual Retrieval.md",
      "x": 460,
      "y": 0,
      "width": 400,
      "height": 240
    }
  ],
  "edges": []
}

python3 "$CORE" transaction inspect BUNDLE --vault VAULT
# Set APPROVAL_SHA256 to the inspect result's approval_sha256 after review.
python3 "$CORE" transaction apply BUNDLE --vault VAULT \
  --approved-plan-sha256 "$APPROVAL_SHA256"

© AgriciDaniel, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file (references) in skills/canvas of AgriciDaniel/claude-obsidian.

• SKILL.md
• references/canvas-spec.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 32ac5a0