Session: Built obsidian-memory-plugin Cowork Plugin

Date: 2026-05-27 Topic: Designed and built the obsidian-memory-plugin for Claude Cowork

What happened

Jason wanted Claude to have persistent memory across Cowork sessions using his Obsidian vault (running Local REST API at 10.2.0.2:27124). We built a skill-only plugin — no MCP server — that calls the REST API directly via bash/curl. The plugin includes a lean SKILL.md and four reference files. It was packaged as obsidian-memory.plugin and installed. Vault was bootstrapped in the same session.

Decisions made

Skill-only plugin (no MCP): direct curl calls are simpler and sufficient for a personal plugin, and produce a single distributable file
API key hardcoded in skill (personal plugin, not for sharing)
SSL verification skipped with -k (self-signed Obsidian cert)
Temp file pattern (cat > /tmp/obs_entry.md) used for all multi-line writes to avoid heredoc quoting issues

Artifacts produced

obsidian-memory.plugin — installed in Cowork
Projects/agents/README.md — vault index (bootstrapped)
Projects/agents/memory/profile.md — Jason's persistent profile (empty, to be filled)
Projects/agents/memory/inbox.md — untriaged notes inbox
Projects/agents/memory/projects/obsidian-memory-plugin.md — this project's state

Open threads

Fill in profile.md (role, preferences, tools stack) as facts come up in conversations
Test memory recall in a fresh session — load README → profile → relevant project

Next step

In the next substantive session, load memory silently at the start (README → profile) and start populating profile.md as Jason's role and preferences emerge.

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