Local LLM Helper

Local LLM Helper

An Obsidian plugin that brings the power of local LLMs directly into your notes. Process text, chat with AI, search your vault semantically — all while keeping your data private and local.

Features

🔌 Multi-Provider Support

Works with any server that supports the OpenAI API format (/v1/chat/completions):

• Ollama - Run open-source models locally
• OpenAI - Use GPT models with your API key
• LM Studio - Local inference with a GUI
• vLLM, LocalAI, text-generation-webui, and more

Switch providers anytime from settings. Configure temperature, max tokens, and streaming.

✍️ Text Processing

Transform selected text with AI-powered commands:

All commands available via Command Palette (prefix: Text:) or ribbon menu.

💬 Chat Interfaces

LLM Chat - General conversation with your LLM

• Remembers last 3 exchanges for context
• Supports all configured personas

RAG Chat - Chat with your indexed notes

• Semantic search across your vault
• Clickable source references
• Example queries to get started

Workflow Automation - Run review workflows against your notes

• Built-in recipes for weekly reviews, meeting notes to tasks, and project status summaries
• Reuses note, folder, and tag scopes from RAG chat
• Every note write stays behind explicit approval cards
• Works from your indexed notes, so you keep local-first review workflows without automatic writes

📚 Notes RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

Index your vault for semantic search and AI-powered Q&A:

• Smart Chunking - Documents split with overlap for better context
• Incremental Indexing - Only re-indexes changed files
• Content Preprocessing - Strips frontmatter and cleans markdown
• Multiple Providers - Works with any OpenAI-compatible embeddings endpoint

🧭 Related Notes Sidebar

Keep semantic context visible while you write:

• Auto-updating sidebar for the current note or selected text
• Preview related notes with similarity scores
• Open any match instantly or select several notes and jump straight into scoped RAG chat

🌐 Web Integration

• Web Search - Search the web using Tavily or Brave API
• News Search - Get recent news on any topic

🎭 Personas

Customize AI behavior with 12 built-in personas — or create your own:

• Software Developer, Physics Expert, Fitness Expert, Stoic Philosopher
• Product Manager, Technical Writer, Creative Writer
• TPM, Engineering Manager, Executive, Office Assistant

Edit any persona's system prompt directly in settings. Create custom personas with your own name and instructions. Restore defaults anytime.

📋 Saved Prompts

Save frequently-used prompts and run them instantly:

• Each saved prompt registers as a command in the palette — assign hotkeys to your favorites
• Fuzzy search picker to quickly find and run any saved prompt
• Full CRUD in settings: create, edit, rename, delete
• Existing single "Custom Prompt" field still works alongside saved prompts

🧠 Reasoning Extraction

Models like DeepSeek and Qwen wrap their thinking process in <think> blocks. Enable reasoning extraction to automatically strip these from output:

• Strips <think>, <reasoning>, and <thought> blocks by default
• Configurable markers via JSON for custom formats
• Applied to text commands, chat, and RAG responses

🔍 Model Picker

Browse available models directly from your server:

• Browse button next to Chat and Embedding model fields
• Fetches from /v1/models endpoint (works with Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM, and others)
• Searchable picker modal — no more guessing model names
• Manual text entry always available as fallback

⚙️ Organized Settings

Settings organized into clear sections:

• Connection & Provider
• Models (with Browse)
• Chat & Personas
• Output & Reasoning
• Custom Prompt & Saved Prompts
• Notes Index (RAG)
• Integrations
• About & Changelog

🎯 Command Organization

All commands use clear prefixes for easy discovery:

• Text: - Text transformation commands
• Prompt: - Your saved custom prompts (hotkey-assignable)
• Chat: - Open chat interfaces
• Workflow: - Run review workflows
• Web: - Web and news search
• Notes: - RAG indexing and management
• Settings: - Plugin configuration

Installation

From Community Plugins (Recommended)

1. Open Obsidian Settings → Community Plugins
2. Click "Browse" and search for "Local LLM Helper"
3. Install and enable the plugin

Manual Installation

1. Download the latest release from GitHub Releases
2. Extract to your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ folder
3. Enable in Settings → Community Plugins

Quick Start

1. Configure Your Provider

Go to Settings → Local LLM Helper and choose your provider:

For Ollama:

• Server: http://localhost:11434
• Model: Click Browse to pick from available models, or type llama3.2
• Embedding Model: mxbai-embed-large

For OpenAI:

• Server: https://api.openai.com
• API Key: Your OpenAI API key
• Model: gpt-4 or gpt-3.5-turbo

For LM Studio:

• Server: http://localhost:1234
• Model: Click Browse to see loaded models, or leave blank for default

2. Try Text Commands

1. Select some text in a note
2. Open Command Palette (Cmd/Ctrl + P)
3. Type "Text:" to see available commands
4. Choose an action like "Summarize" or "Make Professional"

3. Index Your Notes

1. Command Palette → "Notes: Index notes for RAG"
2. Wait for indexing to complete
3. Command Palette → "Chat: RAG Chat" to chat with your notes
4. Command Palette → "Notes: Open related notes" to keep nearby notes visible while writing

4. Run a Workflow

1. Command Palette → "Workflow: Run workflow..."
2. Choose a built-in recipe
3. Confirm the note scope and output target
4. Review the generated approval card before writing anything to your vault

Notes:

• Workflows use the same indexed-note context as RAG chat, so run Notes: Index notes for RAG first if your vault changed.
• Meeting notes to tasks and Project status summary require a target note to append into.
• Workflow approvals still work even if the chat-only Vault Actions toggle is off.

Changelog

Unreleased

Workflow Automation

• Added a manual workflow runner for weekly review, meeting notes to tasks, and project status summary recipes
• Reused note, folder, and tag scopes across RAG chat and workflow runs
• Kept all workflow note writes behind explicit approval cards

Related Notes Sidebar

• Added a persistent "Related Notes" workspace view
• The sidebar updates from the current note or selected text
• Open matching notes directly or start RAG chat with selected related notes

v2.4.0

Saved Prompts

• Save frequently-used prompts with title and text
• Each saved prompt registers as a command — assign hotkeys to your favorites
• Fuzzy-searchable picker modal (Text: Run saved prompt...)
• Full CRUD in settings: create, edit, rename, delete

Persona Editing

• View and edit any persona's system prompt in settings
• Create fully custom personas with your own name and instructions
• Delete custom personas, restore all defaults with one click
• Same backward-compatible persona keys — existing settings just work

Reasoning Extraction

• Toggle to strip <think>, <reasoning>, <thought> blocks from LLM output
• Useful for DeepSeek, Qwen, and other models that expose chain-of-thought
• Configurable markers via JSON for custom formats
• Applied to text commands, general chat, and RAG chat

Model Picker

• Browse button next to Chat and Embedding model fields
• Fetches available models from your server's /v1/models endpoint
• Searchable picker modal — works with Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM, and others
• Manual text entry always available as fallback

Bug Fixes

• Fixed server URL normalization to prevent missing protocol errors
• Resolved security vulnerabilities and cleaned up dependencies

v2.3.1

New Features

• Redesigned RAG Chat: New interface with welcome message, example queries, and clickable sources
• Changelog in Settings: View version history anytime from Settings → About

RAG Improvements

• Smarter chunking with overlap for better context preservation
• Incremental indexing - only re-indexes changed files
• Content preprocessing - strips frontmatter and cleans markdown
• Better error messages when notes aren't indexed

UI/UX

• Commands organized with prefixes (Text:, Chat:, Web:, Notes:)
• Ribbon menu grouped logically with separators
• Settings page organized into 7 clear sections
• All prompts improved for better LLM output
• Persona prompts rewritten to be more actionable

v2.3.0

• Edit with Prompt: Edit selected text with preset or custom prompts
• Security Updates: Fixed dependency vulnerabilities
• Better Error Messages: Clearer embedding failure messages

v2.2.1

• Fixed re-embedding issue on every restart
• Proper persistent storage for embeddings
• Storage diagnostics command

v2.2.0

• Multi-provider support (Ollama, OpenAI, LM Studio)
• Easy provider switching in settings
• Configurable temperature and max tokens

v1.1.3

• Chat history stored (3 previous exchanges)
• Response formatting options

v1.1.1 - v1.1.2

• LLM chat functionality with personas
• Modern chat interface UI

v1.0.10

• Ollama support
• OpenAI API compatibility

v1.0.9

• Added persona selection

v1.0.8

• Replace/append output options

v1.0.7

• Command palette integration

v1.0.6

• Custom prompt capability
• Action items generation

v1.0.5

• Streaming output support

v1.0.4

• Initial release with summarize, rephrase, and generate

Requirements

• Obsidian 1.7.0 or later
• Any LLM server with OpenAI-compatible API (Ollama, LM Studio, OpenAI, vLLM, etc.)

Support

• Report Issues
• Buy Me a Coffee

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.