Run Obsidian and Claude Code as a team

Do you need a plugin, a skill or MCP?

Probably not to start. Here's what each route does, so you can pick only what you need.

obsidian-skills is a set of Agent Skills by Steph Ango, Obsidian's CEO, on his personal GitHub. Only its CLI skill needs Obsidian running. Claudian is desktop only.

These connect an agent to the vault's files. Sharing those files takes something else as well, such as Obsidian Sync, Git, Claudian's companion Claudian Collab, or Treehouse, and they differ in how they show who did what and how you get work back.

Why a one-person setup stops working

• Claude's work stays on your laptop until something shares it. Your team can't see it, and can't tell it from yours.
• Nothing says who did what. Claude's edits look like yours. Git can tell you, if everyone on the team is happy using Git.
• Obsidian Sync helps people more than agents. A shared vault holds up to 20 people, each with a paid Sync plan. Headless Sync can reach it, using a person's Obsidian account. A device name can label its changes in version history, but Claude has no identity of its own.
• Claude Code's /rewind is for one session. It's a good way back from your own Claude's tracked edits, and Claude Code's docs say to keep using version control for history and collaboration. It doesn't cover a teammate's session.
• Clients and colleagues without Obsidian are left out. Publish can show them notes, but it's a separate product with its own subscription.

1. Share the vault

Turn off Obsidian Sync for this vault if you use it, because Obsidian advises against running a third-party sync alongside it. Then make a workspace and connect the vault folder with the desktop app or the sync CLI:

treehouse login ~/Vaults/Acme

Invite your team. Each person syncs the workspace to a folder and opens it as a vault, or just uses the web app. Claude keeps working on local files at disk speed, exactly as it did before, and sync carries its changes to everyone within seconds. Nobody has to export, push or remember anything. The Obsidian comparison lists what we found when we tested a real vault, including what to expect when several people have Obsidian open at once.

2. Write down the rules

A new workspace gives you an AGENTS.md to edit, and it syncs with the vault, so one set of rules reaches everyone. Current versions of Claude Code read it directly, but only when there's no CLAUDE.md in the folder or above it. To be sure, add a CLAUDE.md beside it containing one line, @AGENTS.md, which imports it. Then add a section for how you use Obsidian:

## Working in this vault

- This is a shared Obsidian vault. Other people and agents use it too.
- Never edit anything in `.obsidian/`.
- Use standard Markdown images in anything a client or teammate may
  read in a browser. `![[embeds]]` only show as links there.
- Rename notes with the Treehouse `move_file` tool, which updates links.
  If you rename a file on disk, update every link to it yourself.
- Keep a client's images inside that client's folder.
- Don't delete notes you didn't create. Ask first.

Write your AGENTS.md has more on what works well here.

3. Give Claude its own key

Claude Code can reach the workspace in two ways, and it's worth setting up both:

Undo works per key, so undoing a synced folder also takes back your own edits from that folder. To see and undo Claude's work on its own, its changes must go through its own key. In the web app, open API keys, create a key with Used by set to Agent (MCP), then run the command it gives you:

claude mcp add --transport http treehouse https://api.trytree.house/api/mcp \
  --header "x-api-key: <your key>"

Name the key after the job, such as claude-research, so it reads well in Activity. Over MCP, Claude makes partial edits with edit_file rather than resending whole files, follows links both ways with get_links, and finds notes by tag with list_tags. The Claude Code docs page has the details.

4. Review what Claude did

Activity lists every change and marks which came from a person and which from an agent. To give feedback, select text in a note in the web app and leave a comment, then ask Claude to pick it up:

Read the open comments on Clients/Acme/Brief.md, make the changes,
reply to each thread, and resolve the ones you've fixed.

5. When Claude gets it wrong

/rewind takes back tracked edits in your own session. This is for the shared workspace, whoever's Claude did it, whenever they did it. When Claude rewrites the wrong folder:

1. Open Activity, then See all activity.
2. Hover over the first change you want gone and select Undo Claude Code's changes… (with your key's name).
3. Select Preview changes, check the list, then select Undo changes.

Everything that key changed after that moment goes back: edits are reversed, deleted files return, renames are put back and new files go to the trash. If a teammate edited one of those files afterwards, Treehouse leaves it alone and tells you, rather than throwing their work away. Undo what an agent did covers the edges.

Two more safety nets sit behind it. You can restore a folder or the whole workspace to an earlier time, and deleted files go to the trash, where you can bring them back.

Claude can undo its own work too, if you ask it to, with preview_undo_my_changes and undo_my_changes. It can only ever touch changes made with its own key. Undoing anyone else's work is for people.

6. Share the result

When something's ready for a client, create a public link to the file or folder. They read it in a browser with no account. Pin the link to a version when you're sending something final, so it keeps saying what it said. Agents can't create public links, by design, so a person always makes that call.

What doesn't work yet

• Embeds show as a link rather than the file, in the web app and on public links, so use a standard Markdown image where you want one seen. Wikilinks work.
• Hidden %%comments%% are visible in the web app and on public links.
• Obsidian's layout file stays on each person's computer from Treehouse 0.1.11. On older versions it makes conflicted copies when two people have the vault open, so update first. See the Obsidian comparison.
• Renames on disk don't update links in other notes, which is why that rule is in AGENTS.md. Renames over MCP and in the web app do.
• Treehouse doesn't run agents. It's where the work lives. You bring Claude Code, and you decide when it runs.