Ambient Backlinks

Shows a one-line, LLM-written explanation of how each backlinked note relates to the note you're currently viewing — not a summary of the other note, but the nature of the connection ("gives a counter-example", "is the prerequisite step", "was written after reading this").

Features

• A side panel, "Ambient Backlinks", listing every note that links to the one you're viewing, most recently modified first.
• For each linking note, the paragraph containing the actual link is located and sent to an LLM, which writes one short line describing how it relates to the current note.
• Explanations are cached in memory, keyed by both notes' modification times, so an unchanged pair is never re-explained.
• Auto mode explains new/changed backlinks automatically after a short debounce; manual mode only calls the LLM when you ask it to, so you control API spend.
• Click a row to open that note, or expand it to see the actual linking paragraph.

How to use

1. Open the panel via the ribbon icon (link icon), the command palette ("Open panel"), or by running "Explain backlinks for current note" directly.
2. Open a note that other notes link to. The panel lists every inbound link, most recently modified first.
3. In Auto mode, the panel explains itself shortly after you land on the note. In Manual mode, click "Explain backlinks" when you're ready.
4. Click a row's title to open that source note, or click the ▸/▾ toggle to expand the row and read the paragraph that contains the link.

Under the hood: the plugin scans metadataCache.resolvedLinks for every note that links to the active one, reads each source note to locate the paragraph containing the actual link (via metadataCache.getFileCache().links + getFirstLinkpathDest), trims it to the configured snippet length, and sends pending sources to the LLM in small batches asking for one relationship line per source.

Settings

• API base URL / API key / Chat model — standard OpenAI-compatible LLM settings (works with OpenAI, Ollama, LM Studio, etc.).
• Explanation mode — Auto explains new/changed backlinks automatically after a debounce delay once you land on a note; Manual only runs when you click "Explain backlinks", so you control API spend.
• Debounce delay (ms) — how long auto mode waits after you open a note before calling the LLM (lets you flip through notes without firing a request per note).
• Max backlinks per note — caps how many inbound links are shown/explained, most recently modified first.
• Snippet length (characters) — how much of the linking paragraph is sent to the LLM and shown on expand.

Limitations

• The explanation cache is in-memory only and resets when the plugin reloads or Obsidian restarts — reopening a note you've already explained will re-call the LLM once per session.
• Only explicit wikilinks/markdown links and embeds are considered; unresolved links (to notes that don't exist yet) are not part of resolvedLinks and are ignored, as are links that only appear in a way the metadata cache doesn't capture a position for (falls back to the top of the note in that rare case).
• The one-line relationship is only as good as the model's read of the linking paragraph; very short or context-free snippets (e.g. a bare link in a list) yield less useful explanations.
• No retry/backoff on LLM errors beyond surfacing a Notice; a failed batch simply leaves those rows as "Not explained yet" until the next explain pass.

Privacy and network use

This plugin only makes network requests to the LLM endpoint you configure in its settings (OpenAI-compatible; a local Ollama or LM Studio works fully offline). The title of the active note and the linking paragraph from each backlinking note are sent to that endpoint to generate the relationship summaries. Nothing is sent anywhere else, no telemetry is collected, and no requests are made until an endpoint is configured. Using a hosted provider may require a paid account with that provider.

Installation

This plugin is not yet available in the Obsidian community plugin store. To try it, install it manually:

1. Copy (or symlink) the plugins/ambient-backlinks folder into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/ambient-backlinks.
2. Reload Obsidian (or run "Reload app without saving" from the command palette) and enable "Ambient Backlinks" under Settings → Community plugins.
3. Open plugin settings and set an API base URL (e.g. a local Ollama server) and chat model.

Support

If this plugin is useful to you, you can support its development at Buy Me a Coffee.