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Feynman AI research Assistant plugin for Obsidian

The Feynman AI Research Assistant plugin for Obsidian has been released, allowing users to run research workflows like deep research and literature reviews locally via Docker using their own Anthropic API key. The plugin stores API keys and secrets in a local file outside the vault for security, with no cloud tier available in the initial release. Users can install the plugin manually or via BRAT, then configure it to generate outputs as markdown files within their vault.

read2 min publishedMay 25, 2026

A research agent for your vault. Runs locally in Docker against your own Anthropic API key.

A research agent for your vault. Runs locally in Docker against your own Anthropic API key.

sk-ant-...

)Once the plugin is installed, configured, and the local Docker server is running:

/

in the input to browse the built-in workflows — /deepresearch

, /lit

(literature review), /audit

, /recipe

, /review

, and several others. Each one opens a small form with the arguments it expects (e.g. a topic

field).<vault>/Feynman/outputs/

, <vault>/Feynman/notes/

, and <vault>/Feynman/papers/

as regular markdown files. Click the artifact link in the chat panel to jump straight to the file in Obsidian.You can also invoke a workflow directly from the command palette (e.g. Feynman: Deep research…) without opening the chat panel first — useful when a vault note is the topic and you want to pass activeFile

or the current selection as context.

git clone https://github.com/icarian-systems/feynman-research-agent.git
cd feynman-research-agent
npm install
npm run build

Then copy main.js

, manifest.json

, and styles.css

into your vault at:

<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/feynman-research-agent/

Reload Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins, and enable Feynman.

If you'd rather not build locally, install via BRAT: add this repository as a beta plugin and BRAT will fetch the release artifacts for you.

After enabling the plugin, follow docs/SETUP.md to pull the Docker image, configure your Anthropic key, and run your first workflow.

Read this carefully before using the plugin.

~/.feynman/secrets.json

(file mode 0600

). The plugin does not encrypt this file. Because secrets live outside the vault, they are <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/feynman-research-agent/data.json

.127.0.0.1

. There is no cloud/managed-Modal tier shipped in v1 — that mode is disabled in settings until a later release.FEYNMAN_AUTH_TOKEN

and writes it into the container env-file. Without that header any other process on your machine (browser tabs included) gets 401 Unauthorized

from http://127.0.0.1:7777

. Self-hosted users must set the same env var on their server and paste the value into Settings.http://

for any host that isn't 127.0.0.1

, localhost

, or ::1

, so the bearer token doesn't fly in plaintext.api.getwaitlist.com

If you don't want your keys leaving the device on which you typed them, the default setup already keeps them on-device: ~/.feynman/secrets.json

is outside any vault and is never touched by Obsidian Sync.

The plugin uses one non-public API to deep-link into its own settings tab from inline "Open settings" affordances (the app.setting.open()

/ app.setting.openTabById(...)

pair). The calls are wrapped in try/catch

; if a future Obsidian release removes that surface the plugin falls back to a Notice that says "Open Settings → Community plugins → Feynman". No functionality is lost; the deep link just becomes a manual click.

MIT.

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