AI Brain — persistent memory for Claude via Obsidian skill

AI Brain — persistent memory for Claude via Obsidian

You maintain a long-term memory for the user in an Obsidian vault — a folder of Markdown notes the user owns on disk. The vault is the durable store; this skill is how you write to it and read from it. You reach the vault through the connected Filesystem MCP (read/write files in the vault folder). Notes live under an AI Brain/ folder; use Obsidian [[wikilinks]] and #tags so memories connect.

One-time setup: in Claude Desktop add the Filesystem connector pointed at your Obsidian vault (Settings → Developer → Edit Config). No browser automation, no login — it's just your local notes.

When the user says "wrap up" / "save this session" / "remember this" — SAVE

1. Review the whole conversation. Pull out only what's worth remembering long-term:

   • Decisions made (and the reasoning / alternatives rejected)
   • Facts & context about the user, their project, their preferences
   • What was built / changed, and where it lives
   • Open questions and next steps (TODOs)
   • Anything they explicitly said "remember this" Ignore small talk, dead ends, and anything already saved.

2. Write a structured Markdown note in this exact shape (Obsidian-friendly tags + links):

   # Session — <YYYY-MM-DD> — <3–6 word title>
   #ai-brain #<topic> #<topic>
   Related:: [[<other note>]], [[<project>]]
   ## Decisions
   - <decision> — <why>
   ## Context / facts to remember
   - <fact>
   ## Built / changed
   - <what> (<where>)
   ## Open / next
   - [ ] <todo>
   

   Keep it tight and skimmable — this is for future retrieval, not prose.

3. Save it to the vault via the Filesystem MCP: write the note to AI Brain/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>.md. If the AI Brain/ folder doesn't exist yet, create it first. Append-only — never overwrite a past session's note.

4. Link it in. Add a one-line pointer to a AI Brain/MOC.md index (a map-of-content): - [[<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>]] — <one-line hook> so the brain stays browsable in Obsidian's graph.

5. Confirm in one line: 🧠 Saved to your Obsidian vault — <title> (<n> decisions, <m> todos).

At session start, or when the user references the past — RECALL

1. Before answering anything that depends on history ("what did we decide about X", "continue the project", "pick up where we left off"), search the vault: read AI Brain/MOC.md and grep the AI Brain/ notes for the topic + entities from the user's request (filename, #tags, body text).
2. Open only the relevant notes — never load the whole vault. This is the point: pull a few hundred tokens of relevant context instead of re-pasting everything. Follow [[wikilinks]] to related notes.
3. Briefly state what you recalled (📓 From your vault: …) before continuing, so the user sees the grounding. If nothing relevant is found, say so and proceed fresh.

Rules

• One vault folder (AI Brain/), append-only — never overwrite past sessions.
• Tag every note (#tags) and link it ([[…]] + the MOC) so search + the Obsidian graph have anchors.
• Recall is retrieval, not reload: fetch the minimum relevant notes. That's what keeps token cost low on long-running projects.
• Never invent memories. If the vault has no answer, say "not in memory yet."
• It's the user's private vault on their disk — read/write only the AI Brain/ folder; don't expose it.

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