This guide walks through setting up an Obsidian vault on a home computer (like a Raspberry Pi) so that Claude Code can read and edit it remotely — letting you manage your notes, ask questions about your vault, and create or update notes by talking to Claude from any machine.

The end result: your vault lives on a home server, stays in sync via Obsidian Sync, and Claude Code runs directly inside the vault directory so you can treat your notes as a tool-accessible knowledge base.

How It Works

graph TD
    iPhone["iPhone (Claude app)"]
    CC["Claude Code<br>--remote-control vault"]
    Sync["ob sync --continuous"]
    Vault["~/obsidian/Vault"]
    Cloud["Obsidian Cloud"]
    Devices["Your other devices"]

    iPhone -- "Remote Control" --> CC
    CC -- "reads/writes" --> Vault
    Sync -- "syncs" --> Vault
    Sync <--> Cloud
    Cloud <--> Devices

    subgraph Pi ["Home server — tmux: vault"]
        CC
        Sync
        Vault
    end

Obsidian Sync and Claude Code run persistently in a tmux session. Your phone connects to the Claude Code window via Remote Control — you issue commands and get responses as if you were sitting at the machine.

No firewall changes or port forwarding needed. Remote Control makes outbound HTTPS requests only and never opens inbound ports — your home server phones home through the Anthropic API, and your iPhone connects through the same channel. (Source)

What You’ll Need

  • A computer running Linux (Raspberry Pi, old laptop, home server — anything with a stable network connection)
  • An Obsidian Sync subscription (required for headless sync)

Step 1: Install Node.js via NVM

Claude Code and the Obsidian headless sync tool both require Node.js. Install it via NVM so you can manage versions cleanly.

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.4/install.sh | bash

Restart your shell (or source ~/.bashrc), then install Node 24:

nvm install 24

Verify:

node --version   # should print v24.x.x

Step 2: Install Claude Code

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Then authenticate:

claude

Follow the prompts to log in with your Anthropic account.

Step 3: Create a Working Directory

Create a dedicated directory that will serve as both the vault and the place you launch Claude Code from.

mkdir -p ~/obsidian/Vault
cd ~/obsidian/Vault

Obsidian Sync works on the directory itself — it syncs vault contents directly into whatever folder you point it at. This same directory is where you’ll launch Claude Code.

Step 4: Set Up Obsidian Sync (Headless)

The obsidian-headless package lets a Linux server sync your Obsidian vault without the Obsidian desktop app running — no GUI needed.

Install the headless client

npm install -g obsidian-headless

Log in to Obsidian Sync

ob login

This opens an OAuth flow in your browser. Complete it on your workstation if the server has no display — the login URL will be printed to the terminal.

Find and connect your vault

List your remote vaults to get the vault name:

ob sync-list-remote

Example output:

Vaults:
  01234abc  "Vault"  (North America)

Run sync-setup from inside the vault directory you just created:

cd ~/obsidian/Vault
ob sync-setup --vault Vault

Do an initial sync

ob sync

Step 5: Set Up tmux and Launch Everything

Install tmux if it isn’t already available:

sudo apt install tmux

Navigate to the vault directory and start a new named session:

cd ~/obsidian/Vault
tmux new-session -s vault

In the first window, rename it to sync and start Obsidian’s continuous sync:

Ctrl-b ,   → type: sync

ob sync --continuous

Open a second window, rename it to claude, and launch Claude Code with remote control:

Ctrl-b c
Ctrl-b ,   → type: claude

claude remote-control --name vault

To reconnect after logging out:

tmux attach -t vault

Connect from iOS

Open the Claude app on your iPhone, tap Code in the navigation bar, and find the vault session in the list — it shows a computer icon with a green dot when online. Tap it to connect — you’re now controlling Claude Code on your home server from your phone.

What You Can Do with This

Once set up, Claude Code has full read/write access to your vault. Some things that work well:

  • Search and retrieve: “Find all my notes tagged #recipe and summarize them”
  • Create notes: “Add a new note in Projects/Travel for my Japan trip with a packing list”
  • Edit existing notes: “Update my reading list to mark Thinking Fast and Slow as done”
  • Cross-note analysis: “What’s the common thread across my meeting notes from last month?”
  • Filing inbox items: “Take the unsorted notes in Inbox and file them in the right folders”

The vault is just a folder of markdown files — Claude Code reads and writes them like any other file, with full awareness of Obsidian conventions like wikilinks and frontmatter.