Background, on the commute this morning my kids noticed that Spotify changed their logo and the color is slightly different. I commented how it is now slightly harder for me to find the sea of greenish apps, and my son noticed that it looks like "that old app you used to use that had the elephant". I said, "Oh Evernote? Boy I sure don't miss that."

He said "Yeah, that app was basically the Temu Obsidian", and my daughter chimed in with SHEIN Obsidian, lol.

I thought it was a hilariously awesome and fitting slam. I know they're mostly humoring me on my obsession, but they also think it's cool and have created a few notes in their own vaults.

(adding help flair, and this will probably get deleted seeing that there's no category, but I hope it brings a smile to a few before it gets nuked)

Would you use a security or audit tool for Obsidian community plugins? I am thinking about building something local-first for people who use a lot of Obsidian plugins and want more visibility before blindly trusting random JavaScript in their vault. It would scan installed plugins, flag things like network calls, shell or process usage, eval, unusual file access, show what changed before updating a plugin, and maybe let you snapshot or rollback plugin versions. Is this a real concern for you, or overkill? Do you avoid plugins because of trust or security concerns? Would something like this make more sense as an Obsidian plugin, a desktop companion app, or both? Not selling anything, just trying to figure out if this is worth building.

I’m curious how Obsidian users think about this.

One thing I keep noticing with note apps in general is that they’re good at storage, but not always great at helping you actually remember or resurface what you saved later.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about two ideas:

• automatic connections between related notes
• turning notes into review prompts / spaced repetition

But I can’t tell if that’s genuinely useful or if it just sounds smart on paper.

For people here who use Obsidian seriously:

1. Do linked notes actually improve your thinking over time, or mostly help with organization?
2. Does the graph / connection layer become practically useful for you, or mostly aesthetic?
3. If your notes could automatically suggest review questions, would that be interesting or annoying?
4. What feels more missing in note tools: better structure, better retrieval, or better memory support?

Not trying to shill anything here — I’m genuinely trying to understand where Obsidian users think the line is between useful knowledge tooling and feature theater.

Would love honest takes, especially from people with larger vaults.

i use excalidraw for notes, not obsidian, i have an important exam in 3 days and today i find all my images in my notes are GONE. replaced by this white box with a img block symbol in the middle

but here's the thing. when I opened another excalidraw board in incognito and opened my previously saved file, removed that and pasted my current board, the images that were present in the previous save file came to life. so does this mean that my images have lost the way to their file data? or does it mean that only the holder is present and its data is lost?

images:

https://preview.redd.it/wm830h7ghf2h1.png?width=1393&format=png&auto=webp&s=06877566766ac90cea70411b36a6da837d9dcb30

the ones that are visible are the ones that were present in the previous save file [and this is just a small part of my whole board]

Please help me. How do I fix this

Wrote a deep dive into my Hermes & Obsidian setup.

It covers everything from what I actually use it for, what I've experimented with, the principles behind this evolving system, the breakdown of my entire setup, and tons of resources & tools & tips for getting started on your own.

https://preview.redd.it/buq4viafze2h1.png?width=1522&format=png&auto=webp&s=6d8c6d051b15f49ef537c65be580fa87dc8ae7dd

I use AI pretty often while learning, researching, brainstorming, and reading things online, and I like keeping useful outputs in Obsidian because it’s where my long-term notes live.

But getting Al chats into Obsidian still feels more annoying than it should.

Copy/paste works, but it gets tedious fast: formatting can be messy, source context is easy to lose, and I still have to decide where the note should go, whether to add properties, and how to keep it from becoming another random disconnected file in the vault.

Full chat exports are not ideal either. They can preserve context, but they usually bring in too much noise: repeated prompts, half-useful drafts, clarifications, and back-and-forth that only mattered in the moment.

I've been thinking about how to make this fit more naturally into the Markdown workflow, so I built this flow into SurfMind. It's been pretty handy and has saved me a lot of time and effort:

1. Ask Al to summarize or select only useful chat messages
2. Export those messages into Obsidian as Markdown
3. Save them into a folder like "Al Inbox"
4. Review, link, and move the note later

Obsidian export demo

Would love to hear how others handle this. Do you use any tools, plugins, or workflows to export AI chats into Obsidian?

I’m using Obsidian a lot in my master’s thesis. One problem I frequently encounter when taking notes on articles written in different languages is that some concepts with the same meaning obviously have different words in each language. As a result, I end up with repeated or very similar notes.

Should I translate the concepts into a single chosen language and insert them somewhat awkwardly into the texts, translate all the texts, or simply keep separate notes for similar concepts in each language?

Hi,

Thanks for this great app and community. I have been looking for a new notetaking app for a while now, and happy i finally found this.

I use a lot of lists and todo lists, and have an improvement suggestion:

When typing inn bulletpoint lists or todo lists with checkmarks, the first letter is always a small letter.

This is really annoying, and i have not found any plugin or setting that is helpful yet.

Any workarounds? (Other than using shift manually 😅)

Hi everyone! I'm excited to finally share Operon.

This began in February with an ambitious little sentence in my notes: build the task and project management system I would want future humans and agents to use. After a planning phase, development started near the end of February. Close to 250 hours later, Operon has become my only task system after roughly 3,000 tasks.

The core idea is simple: I wanted something more capable than checkboxes, but I did not want my work to leave Markdown or pull me out of flow. Tasks show up across daily notes, project notes, meeting notes, references, and long-running areas, then need to be found, edited, scheduled, repeated, or tracked later.

Operon tries to bring those fragments into one local task system without turning them into a separate app.

https://preview.redd.it/xz88ymrby92h1.png?width=3521&format=png&auto=webp&s=2b5bed078d9680b49eba8106e8401bb13cdf3759

Design notes

During the planning phase, I also benchmarked the parts of other task and productivity tools that felt genuinely useful instead of trying to rediscover every wheel from scratch.

I liked the fluid task creation ideas around Tasks and TaskNotes, the usefulness of a file body view for note-based tasks, the speed of clean timer tools like Timing, Toggl, and ClickUp, the planning feel of Notion and TickTick calendars, and the way ClickUp's swimlanes can make a Kanban board much more useful than a flat status board. The pinned task idea also came from that same ClickUp benchmark: small, focused, and surprisingly handy when you are actively working.

Dataview and QuickAdd also influenced the inline syntax: I liked how they make structured information feel natural inside Markdown, so Operon uses a compact {{key:: value}} pattern for task metadata.

The goal was not to clone those tools. It was to take the flows that already felt proven, then adapt them to Obsidian's strengths: Markdown files, links, local data, reusable views, and tasks that can live inside the notes where the work already has context.

The codebase itself is new. Operon was written from scratch around a new task engine built for this plugin, rather than wrapping an existing task system or trying to extend another plugin's data model.

The core idea

Operon is an Obsidian-native task management system that keeps tasks in Markdown while adding structured metadata, durable identity, reusable views, planning, recurrence, and time tracking. Tasks can also carry their own icon and color, so important work can stay visually recognizable across different views.

Every Operon task gets an operonId, so the same task can appear in notes, filters, Calendar, Kanban, the Task Editor, recurrence, pinned tasks, and time tracking without becoming duplicate work.

The same canonical task fields are reused across inline metadata, file-task frontmatter, the Task Editor, filters, Calendar, and Kanban, so a field keeps the same meaning wherever it appears.

Tasks can move through workflows without losing source, context, or history.

Inline and file tasks in one system

Operon supports both of Obsidian's natural task shapes: lightweight inline checkbox tasks inside existing notes, and larger file-based tasks that deserve their own Markdown note. Both share the same index, metadata model, Task Editor, filters, Calendar, Kanban boards, and time tracking.

You can convert between inline and file tasks when the work changes shape. A quick line can stay inside a planning note, while a bigger project or deliverable can become its own Markdown file with sections, references, subtasks, and decisions.

Inline task metadata lives in compact {{key:: value}} fields after the task text. There are many canonical keys under the hood, but the syntax stays simple: a normal checkbox line can carry identity, dates, status, priority, recurrence, or other metadata without becoming unreadable.

https://preview.redd.it/alnajy7cy92h1.png?width=1354&format=png&auto=webp&s=0c2c2712c54acfdb9c7f69608f4e514e3ffcffd8

You do not have to choose one task format forever. The task can grow or shrink into the shape it needs.

Capture, editing, search, and filters

Tasks rarely arrive from one perfect inbox, so Operon has several creation and conversion paths. You can create or convert tasks from the command palette, current line, selected text, an existing checkbox, the main Task Creator, a file task, a Calendar slot, a Kanban cell, or an external calendar event.

https://preview.redd.it/d0jdl2ocy92h1.png?width=1451&format=png&auto=webp&s=67476f495610b2db883ac7e2ffb7271247df802d

The Task Editor gives a structured surface for status, priority, dates, tags, contexts, assignees, parent tasks, dependencies, recurrence, pinning, and time tracking. For file tasks, it keeps the Markdown body close so the task still behaves like a real note.

https://preview.redd.it/rdw158gey92h1.png?width=2404&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a9faa3b736a7545774c740909904b35ee255335

Task Finder is for the moment when you remember the work but not where you filed it. It searches across inline and file tasks by names, ids, notes, metadata, parent/child context, dates, and related links. Saved filters turn task rules into reusable work scopes for views, note embeds, side panels, Calendar presets, and Kanban presets.

Task management becomes less about remembering where something lives and more about naming the view of work you need right now.

https://preview.redd.it/o3yg4euey92h1.png?width=1252&format=png&auto=webp&s=a1836c05f25a195a8fc0994c62118f10104c864a

Calendar planning, from task pool to time blocks

Operon's Calendar has two main planning modes: Time Grid for day-style time blocking, and Multi-Week for seeing a wider planning horizon.

https://preview.redd.it/gfbg6bafy92h1.png?width=3514&format=png&auto=webp&s=cbf69d34f876c31bf010a0e2b789026cff5b1a43

Tasks can appear as all-day items, due items, timed blocks, finished work, or projected recurring occurrences depending on the view.

The Task Pool turns the Calendar sidebar into a planning inbox. It can show overdue, unscheduled, or open tasks, then let you drag them onto the Calendar as all-day or timed work.

Read-only external ICS calendars can sit beside local Operon tasks, so outside commitments can be visible without turning them into editable vault tasks.

Calendar scheduling updates the same underlying task record, so the task still keeps its metadata, source note, status, priority, icon, color, recurrence, and tracking history.

https://preview.redd.it/tvitbiqfy92h1.png?width=3521&format=png&auto=webp&s=c7cdf1dbadfb37f5aa21b97d257ba1b97dd24cb4

Kanban boards

Operon's Kanban boards are built from task metadata, not from a separate board database.

Columns come from pipeline statuses, so each board can follow the workflow that fits the work type.

Swimlanes can organize cards by priority, tags, contexts, assignees, due date, or scheduled date. This was one of the reasons I wanted Kanban in Operon: a flat status board is useful, but swimlanes make the same board much easier to scan.

Dragging cards updates the underlying task metadata, so Kanban, filters, Calendar, and the Task Editor stay aligned.

Kanban search narrows the board in place, using the same task-search engine behind Task Finder.

https://preview.redd.it/4yw2ck6gy92h1.png?width=3521&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f1bba47fedb0a825406fc325a96cc3897c7371c

Recurrence

Operon recurrence can be schedule-based, completion-based, or count-based, with daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly patterns.

Recurring tasks create fresh occurrences with new task identity while carrying useful context forward. Completion state, tracked time, progress, and dependencies reset so each occurrence remains a real task of its own.

For recurring file tasks, Operon can create the next Markdown file, reset checkboxes, recreate owned inline subtasks with fresh ids, update date/week tokens, and apply property cleanup rules.

Projected recurring occurrences can appear in Calendar, and skipped dates can be managed from the repeat controls.

https://preview.redd.it/ohk0itmgy92h1.png?width=839&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4a40486a26c1f9c8b2258b63b4deca705af2482

written from scratch around a new task engine
Repeated work stays connected to its original structure without becoming copy-paste maintenance.

Time tracking

Operon can start and stop timers from the task itself, then store completed sessions on the task record that explains the work.

TrackTime is the normal timer flow. FlowTime adds a focused countdown rhythm for sessions where I want a little more structure without using a strict Pomodoro model.

Time Session History lets you review, edit, remove, or restart previous sessions.

Parent tasks can roll up tracked duration from child tasks, so larger work can show the combined effort of its descendants.

https://preview.redd.it/zn4oro2hy92h1.png?width=917&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c22a52fbc5d2cd8cfde10dbf14c746995095b5b

Tracked effort stays attached to task history instead of living in a separate timer log.

Pinned work, contextual actions, and local data

The Pinned Task Dock is a small focused working set for tasks that should stay nearby while you work.

Contextual task actions can appear on pinned tasks, filter rows, Kanban cards, Calendar items, task pool entries, FlowTime tasks, and time history rows.

The available actions change by surface, so actions like open editor, jump to source, mark done, start timer, pin or unpin, change status, cancel, unschedule, or skip an occurrence show up where they make sense.

https://preview.redd.it/9udm7uihy92h1.png?width=642&format=png&auto=webp&s=90c9a3c2b02c81820db4fe7e83bfcad5ab1b97d2

Operon stores settings and runtime data in the vault-level .operon folder. It has no telemetry, analytics, tracking pixels, or usage reporting.

External ICS support only reads configured calendar sources into Operon's local cache.

Your task system stays part of your vault, not a remote service.

Who Operon is for

Operon is probably most useful if your work already spans daily notes, project notes, meeting notes, long-running areas, recurring responsibilities, or agent-assisted workflows. It is for people who want more than plain checkboxes, but still want tasks to remain readable, editable, linkable Markdown.

I would love feedback from Obsidian users with complex task workflows, especially if you combine daily notes, projects, calendars, boards, recurring work, and time tracking.

I hope the text and screenshots give a useful first sense of how Operon works. I am also planning to share demo videos soon, because many parts of the plugin make more sense when you see the workflow in action.

Website: https://operon.cc/

Community plugin page: https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/operon

Score: %99

Hi:

I never use Reading View.

For me, the experience of Edit Mode rendering is extremely useful, and I never have the need to jump over to Reading View. As far as I know, I'm not really missing anything. I do grant that sometimes dealing with text suddenly expanding or contracting as the underlying raw markdown is revealed can sometimes be annoying. However, I've gotten used to it and it's an annoyance-level problem for me at this point.

I come from a coding background, and I like the way that Obsidian emulates IDEs to a certain degree.

When I first got started, I was sometimes confused by the adoration of some Themes and Plugins. Later, I realized that many of them target Reading View.

What about you? What are your thoughts about Reading View and Edit Mode in your workflow?

EDIT: I should also say that I use Obsidian for my own writing. I use Zotero for PDFs and web captures.