obsidian-llm-wiki-local

obsidian-llm-wiki

Turn your raw notes into a self-improving, interlinked wiki — powered by a local LLM.

Drop a markdown file into a folder. The pipeline reads it, extracts concepts, and creates or updates wiki articles. If a draft is wrong, reject it and explain why; the next compile addresses your feedback. Over time, every note you add and every draft you review makes the wiki smarter.

Local-first, provider-flexible. Runs 100% locally with Ollama by default. Also works with any OpenAI-compatible endpoint — Groq, Together AI, LM Studio, vLLM, Azure OpenAI, and more.

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[!NOTE] obsidian-llm-wiki is now in maintenance mode. → Check out Synto

Bug fixes will continue. New features are being developed in Synto — the successor with a broader scope than the Obsidian LLM wiki pattern.

Migration is handled by Synto's migration command: point it at your existing vault and it converts the project to Synto's format. Your notes and wiki content remain the source of truth. If you're happy with what this tool does today, it keeps working; when you're ready for more, Synto provides the upgrade path.

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The idea (Karpathy's LLM Wiki)

This project is a practical implementation of the pattern described by Andrej Karpathy in "The LLM Wiki" — a vision for a personal knowledge base where:

"The LLM doesn't just store what you tell it — it synthesizes, cross-references, and keeps everything current. You add raw material; it does the bookkeeping."

The key insight: treat your notes as source material, not as the final artifact. The LLM compiles them into a structured wiki that grows smarter as you add more. Unlike a chatbot that forgets, the wiki persists and compounds.

You write raw notes  →  LLM extracts concepts  →  Wiki articles created/updated
     raw/                    (automatic)                    wiki/
  quantum.md          "Qubit", "Superposition"       Qubit.md   ←──┐
  ml-basics.md        "Neural Network", "SGD"    Superposition.md  │
  physics.md          "Qubit" (again!)           Neural Network.md │
                                                      ↑  linked via [[wikilinks]]

The wiki lives in Obsidian, so you get the graph view, backlinks, and Dataview queries for free.

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Features

Incremental compiles. Each concept gets its own article. When you change a source note, only the articles tied to that note recompile, not the whole vault.

File watcher. Run olw watch once and it processes anything you drop into raw/ automatically. Ingest and compile run in the background, so the wiki keeps improving while you keep writing notes.

Rejection feedback. Reject a draft and attach a reason. The next compile of that concept includes your feedback in the prompt, so the model can address it. Five rejections without an approval auto-blocks the concept until you re-enable it.

Hand-edits are preserved. Edit an article in Obsidian and the compiler will detect the change on the next run and skip it. Your edits aren't overwritten by regeneration.

Query and synthesize. olw query "what is X?" answers from your published wiki without embeddings or a vector DB. With --synthesize it saves the answer as a permanent wiki page, complete with source hashes and the same hand-edit protection.

Self-maintenance. Aliases like PC for Program Counter are extracted at ingest and used to repair broken wikilinks. olw lint reports orphans and stale articles; olw maintain --fix rewrites alias links and creates stubs for missing targets.

Provider-flexible. Ollama by default, fully offline. You can also point it at Groq, Together AI, LM Studio, vLLM, Azure OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint via olw setup. olw compare previews a switch in isolated vaults so you can decide before editing wiki.toml.

Multi-language. Each note's language is auto-detected at ingest and the article is written in that language. Extraction rules don't depend on hard-coded word lists, so any language works.

Git-aware. Every automatic action commits with an [olw] prefix, and olw undo reverts the last one. Raw notes are never modified; olw only writes to wiki/ and .olw/.

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Quick start

1. Install

From PyPI (recommended):

pip install obsidian-llm-wiki

Or with uv:

uv tool install obsidian-llm-wiki

From source (latest development version):

git clone https://github.com/kytmanov/obsidian-llm-wiki-local
cd obsidian-llm-wiki-local
python install.py

install.py detects uv or falls back to pip, verifies the install, and tells you to run the next step.

2. Install and start Ollama

# Install Ollama: https://ollama.com/download
ollama pull gemma4:e4b      # fast model — analysis and routing
ollama pull qwen2.5:14b     # heavy model — article writing (optional, 7B+ recommended)

Minimal setup: pull only gemma4:e4b and set both fast and heavy to it in the wizard.

3. Run the setup wizard

olw setup

An interactive wizard selects a provider, configures the URL and optional API key, picks fast and heavy models, sets an optional default vault, and offers experimental features. Takes ~30 seconds.

╭──────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│      obsidian-llm-wiki  ·  setup                 │
╰──────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

  Step 1  Provider

    Local (no API key needed):
       1. Ollama          http://localhost:11434  [default]
       2. LM Studio       http://localhost:1234/v1
       3. vLLM            http://localhost:8000/v1
       ...
    Cloud (API key required):
      10. Groq            https://api.groq.com/openai/v1
      11. Together AI     https://api.together.xyz/v1
      ...

    Select provider (number or name) [1]: _

  Step 2  URL
    Base URL [http://localhost:11434]: _
    ✓ connected

  Step 3  Fast model  (analysis & routing · 3–8B recommended)
    #  Model           Size
    1  gemma4:e4b      9.6 GB
    2  phi4-mini       2.5 GB
    Select (number or name) [1]: _
  ...

Settings are saved to ~/.config/olw/config.toml (Mac/Linux) or %APPDATA%\olw\config.toml (Windows). API keys are stored only in this user-private file, never in wiki.toml.

Experimental setup choices are saved only as defaults for new vaults. Runtime behavior is controlled by each vault's wiki.toml.

4. Set up your vault

olw init ~/my-wiki

This creates the folder structure and a wiki.toml pre-filled with your setup wizard choices.

To enable experimental inline source citations for an existing vault:

olw config inline-source-citations on --vault ~/my-wiki
olw config inline-source-citations status --vault ~/my-wiki

Turn them off at any time with:

olw config inline-source-citations off --vault ~/my-wiki

Manual fallback:

[pipeline]
inline_source_citations = true

5. Add some notes

Drop any .md files into ~/my-wiki/raw/. Web clips, book notes, meeting notes, anything.

~/my-wiki/raw/
  quantum-computing.md
  ml-fundamentals.md
  physics-lecture.md

6. Run the full pipeline

# One command: ingest + compile + lint + optional auto-approve
olw run

# Or step by step:
olw ingest --all
olw compile
olw review        # interactive draft review

If you set a default vault in olw setup, the --vault flag is optional. Otherwise use --vault ~/my-wiki or export OLW_VAULT=~/my-wiki.

Open ~/my-wiki as an Obsidian vault. The graph view shows your connected wiki. Before approving drafts, use a draft-review graph filter:

-path:raw -path:wiki/sources -path:_resources -file:Welcome

After approving drafts, use a published-only graph filter:

-path:raw -path:wiki/sources -path:wiki/.drafts -path:_resources -file:Welcome

The published-only filter hides wiki/.drafts, so it will look empty until drafts are approved. Run olw doctor to print graph guidance for the current vault.

Want to preview a model or provider switch before changing wiki.toml?

olw compare --heavy-model qwen2.5:14b

olw compare rebuilds isolated preview vaults from the same raw/ notes and tells you whether to switch, keep your current config, or review the diffs manually.

7. Keep it running (optional)

olw watch
# Drop a file in raw/ → ingest + compile happen automatically (selective: only linked concepts)

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Query synthesis

olw query answers from the published wiki without embeddings. Use --save to keep a dated Q&A note in wiki/queries/, or --synthesize to publish a reusable synthesis page in wiki/synthesis/.

# Just answer in the terminal
olw query "What is backpropagation?"

# Save a dated Q&A note under wiki/queries/
olw query "What is backpropagation?" --save

# Save a reusable synthesis article under wiki/synthesis/
olw query "What is backpropagation?" --synthesize

Synthesis behavior:

• synthesis pages are published notes tagged with synthesis
• they store the source question, selected source pages, and source page body hashes in frontmatter
• wiki/index.md includes a capped ## Synthesis section sourced from the DB, ordered by newest first and then title
• compare runs stay side-effect-free: query evaluation never writes to the active vault during olw compare
• query-time synthesis does not create a new [olw] git commit

Duplicate handling:

• default behavior is keep_existing for the same normalized question
• interactive terminals only prompt for a strategy when a duplicate already exists
• save_with_suffix keeps the existing page and writes a new suffixed file
• update_in_place rewrites the existing synthesis only when its body still matches the DB-tracked hash
• if the existing synthesis was manually edited, update_in_place refuses to overwrite it
• synthesis pages cannot cite another synthesis page as a source

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Compare a new model or provider

olw compare is a vault switch advisor, not a benchmark harness. It compares your current vault config against one challenger config using the same active vault and the same raw/ notes.

# Same provider, different heavy model
olw compare --heavy-model qwen2.5:14b

# Try a different local provider
olw compare \
  --provider lm_studio \
  --provider-url http://localhost:1234/v1 \
  --fast-model google/gemma-4-e4b \
  --heavy-model google/gemma-4-e4b

# Quick spot-check on a large vault
olw compare --heavy-model qwen2.5:14b --sample-n 20

What it does:

• rebuilds the current config and challenger config in isolated preview vaults
• writes reports under .olw/compare/<run_id>/
• leaves your active raw/ and wiki/ untouched and does not modify active .olw/ state outside .olw/compare/
• returns one verdict: switch, keep_current, or manual_review

Useful options:

• --queries path/to/queries.toml adds a few representative questions to the comparison
• --out /tmp/my-compare writes artifacts outside the vault if you want to inspect them elsewhere
• --keep-artifacts retains the ephemeral preview vaults instead of deleting them after the run
• --sample-n N limits the preview to the first N raw notes for a fast spot-check
• --allow-cloud-upload is required when the challenger uses a cloud provider

Notes:

• compare previews automated generated output, not the final curated vault after human review
• the report includes a ready-to-copy wiki.toml snippet for the challenger when the verdict is switch

Minimal queries.toml example:

[[query]]
id = "backprop"
question = "What is backpropagation?"
expected_contains = ["chain rule"]

Reports are written as Markdown and JSON by default:

• report.md — recommendation-first summary with next steps
• report.json — full machine-readable report
• summary.json — compact verdict and reason summary

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How it works

The pipeline has three stages, each using the LLM for a different purpose:

raw/note.md
    │
    ▼ olw ingest  (or olw run)
    Fast LLM (3B–8B)
    • Reads note
    • Extracts concept names
    • Preserves explicitly evidenced named references as knowledge item candidates
    • Writes quality score + summary to state.db
    • Creates wiki/sources/Note.md (source summary page)
    │
    ▼ olw compile
    Heavy LLM (7B–14B)
    • For each concept: gathers all source notes that mention it
    • Injects rejection feedback from previous reviews into the prompt
    • Writes a wiki article with [[wikilinks]] to related concepts
    • Adds quality annotations if confidence is low or sources are sparse
    • Lands in wiki/.drafts/ for review
    │
    ▼ olw review  (or olw approve)
    • Interactive numbered menu — approve / reject / diff / edit
    • Rejection feedback stored and injected into next compile
    • On approve: annotations stripped, article published to wiki/
    • Updates wiki/index.md (navigation layer)
    • Git commits the change

No vector databases, no embeddings. wiki/index.md acts as the routing layer for olw query. This keeps the setup simple and works well up to ~100 source notes.

The pipeline is intentionally conservative. Strong concepts become draft articles; explicitly evidenced named references become auditable knowledge item candidates. This keeps source-specific names visible without generating low-evidence articles from them.

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Multi-language support

olw detects the language of each raw note during ingest and stores it. At compile time, the article is written in that language — no configuration needed.

Extraction and cleanup are designed to be language-agnostic. The pipeline avoids hard-coded natural-language word lists for title/entity promotion. Instead, it uses structural evidence, explicit source evidence, and conservative confidence levels so notes in any language follow the same rules.

How it works:

1. Ingest — the fast model detects the primary language and stores an ISO 639-1 code (en, fr, de, …) per note in the state DB.
2. Compile — when all source notes for a concept share the same language, the heavy model is instructed to write the article in that language. If sources are mixed, it falls back to matching the source text.
3. Config override — set language in wiki.toml to force a specific output language for the whole vault, regardless of what the model detected.

[pipeline]
language = "fr"   # all articles will be written in French

Leave language unset (the default) to let auto-detection drive it per concept.

Example: a French note ingested alongside English notes produces a French article for French-only concepts and an English article for concepts sourced from English notes. Setting language = "en" forces everything to English.

This language setting controls generated article language only. It does not enable language-specific concept merging or ontology decisions.

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Knowledge item candidates

Not every useful reference deserves a wiki article. During ingest, olw keeps a separate knowledge item ledger for ambiguous, low-evidence references found explicitly in notes:

• LLM-proposed named references accepted only when the exact text appears in the title, filename, or body
• structurally prominent quoted titles, such as "A Practical Guide To Notes"
• confirmed concepts mirrored into the ledger as confirmed knowledge items

These items are not compiled into articles by default. They are preserved for later review, classification, or future evidence accumulation.

olw items audit
olw items show "Example Reference"

This is deliberately conservative: a named reference should not become a concept article unless the source content supports it. The item ledger keeps the reference from disappearing while avoiding hallucinated articles.

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Rejection feedback loop

When you reject a draft:

olw review
# Select draft → [r]eject → "The overview section is too vague, needs concrete examples"

The feedback is stored in the state database. On the next compile of that concept, the prompt includes:

PREVIOUS REJECTIONS — address these issues:
- The overview section is too vague, needs concrete examples

After 5 rejections of the same concept without an approval, the concept is auto-blocked and excluded from future compiles until you explicitly re-enable it:

olw unblock "Quantum Computing"

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Draft annotations

Drafts with low confidence or sparse sources are annotated with HTML comments that are invisible in Obsidian's preview but visible in the editor:

<!-- olw-auto: low-confidence (0.32) — verify before publishing -->
<!-- olw-auto: single-source — cross-reference recommended -->

## Overview
...

Annotations are stripped automatically when you approve a draft. olw review surfaces them as a warning in the draft list.

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Vault structure

my-wiki/
├── raw/                        ← YOUR NOTES (never modified by olw)
│   ├── quantum-computing.md
│   └── ml-fundamentals.md
├── wiki/
│   ├── Quantum Computing.md    ← concept articles (flat, one per concept)
│   ├── Machine Learning.md
│   ├── sources/                ← auto-generated source summaries
│   │   ├── Quantum Computing Fundamentals.md
│   │   └── ML Fundamentals.md
│   ├── queries/                ← saved Q&A answers (olw query --save)
│   ├── synthesis/              ← saved synthesis articles (olw query --synthesize)
│   ├── .drafts/                ← pending human review
│   ├── index.md                ← auto-generated navigation + routing layer
│   └── log.md                  ← append-only operation history
├── vault-schema.md             ← LLM context: conventions for this vault
├── wiki.toml                   ← configuration
└── .olw/
    ├── compare/                ← compare reports + optional preview vault artifacts
    ├── state.db                ← SQLite: notes, concepts, articles, items, rejections, stubs
    └── pipeline.lock           ← advisory lock (auto-released when the holding process exits)

raw/ is immutable — olw never writes to it. All metadata lives in state.db.

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Configuration

wiki.toml (created by olw init):

[models]
fast  = "gemma4:e4b"      # extraction, analysis, query routing
heavy = "qwen2.5:14b"     # article generation, Q&A answers
# Single-model: set heavy = fast

# ── Local Ollama (default) ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
[ollama]
url = "http://localhost:11434"   # supports LAN: http://192.168.1.x:11434
timeout = 600
fast_ctx = 16384                 # context window for fast model (tokens)
heavy_ctx = 32768                # context window for heavy model (tokens)

# ── Any other provider (replaces [ollama] when present) ──────────────────────
# [provider]
# name = "groq"                              # or lm_studio, vllm, together, azure, custom …
# url  = "https://api.groq.com/openai/v1"
# timeout = 120
# fast_ctx = 8192
# heavy_ctx = 32768
# azure_api_version = "2024-02-15-preview"  # Azure only

[pipeline]
auto_approve = false             # true = skip draft review
auto_commit = true               # git commit after each operation
auto_maintain = false            # true = run maintain checks after each compile
max_concepts_per_source = 8      # limit concepts extracted per note
watch_debounce = 3.0             # seconds after last file event before processing
ingest_parallel = false          # true = parallel chunk analysis (needs OLLAMA_NUM_PARALLEL>=4)
# language = "en"               # ISO 639-1 output language; autodetects from notes if unset
# inline_source_citations = false
# source_citation_style = "legend-only"  # legend-only | inline-wikilink
# draft_media = "reference"              # reference | embed | omit

API keys are never stored in wiki.toml. They are read at runtime from the provider-specific env var (e.g. GROQ_API_KEY), the generic OLW_API_KEY env var, or the api_key field in ~/.config/olw/config.toml (written by olw setup).

Tuning context windows

heavy_ctx controls how much source material the heavy model reads when writing articles (source budget = heavy_ctx / 2 chars) and how long the generated article can be. Defaults target 16 GB VRAM. If you use a model with a large context window (e.g. gemma4:e4b supports 128K), increase it.

VRAM	Recommended heavy_ctx	Source budget	Notes
8 GB	8192	~4K chars	Minimum; short articles
16 GB	32768	~16K chars	Default
32 GB+	65536	~32K chars	Rich multi-source articles

fast_ctx controls ingest analysis. Notes longer than fast_ctx / 2 chars are automatically split into chunks and analyzed in sequence — all content is covered, no truncation.

VRAM	Recommended fast_ctx	Notes per chunk
8 GB	8192	~4K chars
16 GB	16384	~8K chars — Default
32 GB+	32768	~16K chars

Speeding up long-note ingest

For vaults with many long notes (>8K chars), enable parallel chunk analysis:

[pipeline]
ingest_parallel = true   # requires OLLAMA_NUM_PARALLEL>=4

Also set in your shell before starting Ollama:

OLLAMA_NUM_PARALLEL=4 ollama serve

This lets Ollama process multiple chunks simultaneously. On 16 GB VRAM with gemma4:e4b (9.6 GB), 4 parallel slots fit comfortably (~12.8 GB total). Wall time for a 25K-char note drops from ~39s to ~14s.

After editing wiki.toml, no reinstall is needed. Run olw compile --force to regenerate articles with the new context budget.

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Commands

Command	Description
olw setup	Interactive setup wizard: pick provider, models, vault
olw init PATH	Create vault structure and git repo
olw init PATH --existing	Adopt an existing Obsidian vault
olw doctor	Check provider connectivity, models, vault structure
olw run	Full pipeline: ingest → compile → lint → [approve]
olw run --auto-approve	Full pipeline, publish without review
olw run --dry-run	Report what would happen, make no changes
olw compare --heavy-model MODEL	Compare current vault config against one challenger model
olw compare --provider NAME --provider-url URL ...	Compare a provider switch safely in isolated preview vaults
olw ingest --all	Analyze all raw notes
olw ingest FILE	Analyze one note
olw compile	Generate wiki articles → .drafts/
olw compile --retry-failed	Retry previously failed notes
olw review	Interactive draft review (approve / reject / diff)
olw approve --all	Publish all drafts without review
olw approve FILE	Publish one draft
olw reject FILE	Discard a draft (prompts for feedback)
olw reject FILE --feedback "..."	Discard with feedback for next compile
olw reject --all	Discard all drafts (prompts once for shared feedback)
olw reject --all --feedback "..."	Discard all drafts with feedback
olw unblock "Concept"	Re-enable a concept blocked after 5 rejections
olw maintain	Health check + stubs + orphan and merge suggestions
olw maintain --fix	Repair broken alias links, create stubs, normalize alias wikilinks
olw maintain --dry-run	Report issues without making changes
olw items audit	Show preserved non-concept knowledge item candidates
olw items show NAME	Show one knowledge item and its source mentions
olw status	Show pipeline state and pending drafts
olw status --failed	List failed notes with error messages
olw query "question"	Answer from your wiki
olw query "..." --save	Answer and save to wiki/queries/
olw query "..." --synthesize	Answer and save a synthesis article to wiki/synthesis/
olw lint	Health check: orphans, broken links, stale articles
olw lint --fix	Auto-fix missing frontmatter fields
olw watch	File watcher — auto-pipeline on new notes
olw watch --auto-approve	Watch + auto-publish (no manual review)
olw undo	Revert last [olw] git commit
olw clean	Clear state DB + wiki/, keep raw/ notes

All commands accept --vault PATH or the env var OLW_VAULT.

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Providers

Run olw setup to pick a provider interactively. All providers are also configurable directly in wiki.toml.

Provider	Type	Embeddings	Notes
Ollama	local	✓	default; full offline
LM Studio	local	✓
vLLM	local	✓
llama.cpp	local	—
LocalAI	local	✓
TGI	local	—
SGLang	local	✓
Llamafile	local	—
Lemonade	local	—
Groq	cloud	—	fast inference, free tier
Together AI	cloud	✓
Fireworks AI	cloud	✓
DeepInfra	cloud	✓
OpenRouter	cloud	—	routes to many models
Mistral AI	cloud	✓
DeepSeek	cloud	—
SiliconFlow	cloud	✓
Perplexity	cloud	—
xAI (Grok)	cloud	—
Azure OpenAI	cloud	✓	see azure_api_version
Custom	any	—	enter URL manually

RAG (embeddings) requires a provider that supports /v1/embeddings. The default index-based query works with all providers.

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Model recommendations

Role	Ollama	Cloud
Fast (analysis + routing)	gemma4:e4b, llama3.2:3b	llama-3.1-8b-instant (Groq), mistral-7b
Heavy (article writing)	qwen2.5:14b, llama3.1:8b	llama-3.3-70b (Groq), mistral-large
Single model (everything)	llama3.1:8b, mistral:7b	any 7B+

Any model with JSON format / response_format: json_object support works. The tool degrades gracefully with smaller models.

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Obsidian tips

• Graph view — concept pages link to source pages and each other via [[wikilinks]]; before approval use -path:raw -path:wiki/sources -path:_resources -file:Welcome, after approval add -path:wiki/.drafts
• Source citations — when inline citations are enabled, the default style stays graph-quiet as [S1](#Sources) links while source pages link once in ## Sources; set source_citation_style = "inline-wikilink" if you want every citation to create a source edge
• Media — source pages preserve ![[media]] embeds; generated drafts default to plain media references to avoid attachment nodes dominating the graph (draft_media = "reference")
• Draft review — drafts live in wiki/.drafts/ and may not appear in Obsidian's default graph filters; use olw doctor for the recommended draft-review and published-only filters
• Dataview — query by status: published, confidence: > 0.7, tags: [physics], etc.
• Backlinks — every concept page shows which source pages mention it
• Web Clipper — save web articles directly to raw/ (see docs/web-clipper-setup.md)

Quality principles for contributors and AI agents

• Prefer deterministic, auditable cleanup over broad LLM-driven merging.
• Do not use LLM aliases as automatic merge authority; aliases are weak evidence.
• Keep concept extraction language-agnostic. Avoid hard-coded English or other language-specific word lists unless the feature is explicitly scoped to that language.
• Preserve weak entity references as knowledge item candidates rather than generating unsupported concept articles.
• Source pages and [S1](#Sources) citations should remain graph-quiet by default; source-page edges belong in ## Sources.
• Generated drafts should avoid media embeds by default. Source pages can preserve embeds; draft articles should usually contain plain media references.
• Raw notes are immutable. All generated state belongs under wiki/ and .olw/.

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Running the tests

All tests are offline — no Ollama required.

git clone https://github.com/kytmanov/obsidian-llm-wiki-local
cd obsidian-llm-wiki-local
uv sync --group dev
uv run pytest

For the full end-to-end smoke test (requires a running provider):

# Ollama (default)
bash scripts/smoke_test.sh

# LM Studio or any other OpenAI-compatible endpoint
PROVIDER=lm_studio bash scripts/smoke_test.sh

# LM Studio with the validated local baseline model
PROVIDER=lm_studio FAST_MODEL=gemma4:e4b HEAVY_MODEL=gemma4:e4b \
bash scripts/smoke_test.sh

# Compare smoke test
PROVIDER=lm_studio FAST_MODEL=gemma4:e4b HEAVY_MODEL=gemma4:e4b \
bash scripts/compare_smoke.sh

If LM Studio rejects the short alias, use the exact loaded model id it reports, for example google/gemma-4-e4b.

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FAQ

Q: I ran olw compile but nothing appears in Obsidian.

Drafts land in wiki/.drafts/ — Obsidian hides dotfolders by default so they won't show in the graph yet. Run:

olw review        # interactive review
# or
olw approve --all

Articles move to wiki/ and become fully visible.

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Q: Compile says "2 article(s) failed: Methodology, Sprints" — what do I do?

Failed concepts are retried automatically on the next run. Or force a retry:

olw compile --retry-failed

If the same concepts keep failing, the LLM is likely struggling with JSON output for those specific titles. Try increasing heavy_ctx in wiki.toml (see Tuning context windows).

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Q: I see structured_output attempt N failed messages during compile — is something broken?

No. This is the built-in 3-tier retry system working as designed. The model occasionally echoes the JSON schema structure instead of flat output — the retry corrects it. Articles are still generated. A real failure surfaces as article(s) failed: ... in the summary line.

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Q: olw ingest --all && olw compile gives "Missing option '--vault'".

Run olw setup first to configure a default vault, or pass it explicitly:

export OLW_VAULT=~/my-wiki
olw ingest --all && olw compile

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Q: I changed models in olw setup but olw compile still uses the old model.

Re-run olw init on your vault — it syncs the model settings from your global config into wiki.toml:

olw init ~/my-wiki

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Q: A concept keeps getting rejected — how do I stop it from recompiling?

After 5 rejections with feedback (olw reject --feedback "…"), the concept is auto-blocked and excluded from future compiles. olw status lists blocked concepts. To re-enable one:

olw unblock "Concept Name"

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Q: Can I use a cloud provider like Groq or Together AI instead of Ollama?

Yes. Run olw setup and select the provider from the numbered list. Enter your API key when prompted — it is stored only in ~/.config/olw/config.toml. Alternatively set the provider-specific env var before each command:

export GROQ_API_KEY=gsk_...
olw run

The pipeline, vault structure, and all olw commands work identically regardless of provider.

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Q: I changed providers in olw setup but wiki.toml still shows [ollama].

Re-run olw init on your vault to sync the global config into wiki.toml:

olw init ~/my-wiki

For existing vaults with a [ollama] section you can also add a [provider] block manually — it takes precedence over [ollama] when present.

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Why not just use a chatbot?

Chatbots forget. Every conversation starts fresh. This tool builds a persistent artifact — a wiki that grows with every note you add, that you can open in Obsidian, search, query, and edit by hand.

The LLM is a compiler, not a conversation partner. You give it raw material; it produces structured knowledge. The output is plain markdown files you own forever.

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Feedback

olw does not collect telemetry.

If something was confusing, useful, annoying, or missing, please tell us:

• Bug reports: https://github.com/kytmanov/obsidian-llm-wiki-local/issues
• Suggestions and experience reports: https://github.com/kytmanov/obsidian-llm-wiki-local/discussions
• Source code: https://github.com/kytmanov/obsidian-llm-wiki-local

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.