Codex Narrative Engine

You built the campaign in Obsidian. Codex compiles it.

An Obsidian plugin for TTRPG vaults: it indexes your notes, lints dead links and contradictions, then runs recipes that plan which files to change. You see the diffs before anything is written.

1:25 demo (Session 5 → advance plots): https://youtu.be/YOrChVk6fSY

Quick Start

1. Install from Obsidian Community Plugins (or BRAT / manually).
2. Add frontmatter to your notes — at minimum type: npc, type: location, etc. — so Codex can index them.
3. Open the warnings panel (ribbon icon or Codex: Open narrative warnings) to see dead links and state conflicts.
4. Set up an AI provider in Settings > Codex Narrative Engine > AI provider to unlock Lore Chat and recipes.

Features

World Management

• Entity indexing — reads frontmatter to build a live index of every entity in your vault.
• Smart autocomplete — type [[ to search your entity index; filter by type with [[npc:, [[location:, etc.
• Hover previews — hover any [[wiki-link]] for a quick summary from the entity's frontmatter and opening text.
• Dead-link detection — unresolved links are underlined in the editor, flagged in the gutter, and listed in the Narrative Warnings panel.
• State conflict warnings — catches contradictions like a dead NPC listed as present in a session, or an item held by a dead character.
• Create & rename entities — create new entity files from templates, or rename an entity and have every reference updated automatically.

AI-Powered Tools (Bring Your Own Key)

All AI features use your own API key — no subscription required. Supports Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), Ollama, LM Studio, and any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

• Lore Chat — a sidebar conversation panel grounded in your campaign lore. Type @ to mention entities or invoke a recipe (@recipe lists them).
• Recipes — constrained campaign edits from Lore Chat. Codex plans the files, you check the boxes, then review a unified diff per file and apply only what you want.
  • @advance-plots from [[Session 5]] — patch linked adventures, quests, and arcs so they match the session.
  • @npc-at-location at [[Blackmoss Landing]] into [[The Lockdown]] — create an NPC at a place and wiki-link them into the plot.
  • @add-arc / @add-location — create a new arc or location note and wire it from the session or parent you named.
• Enhance Note — expands a stub entity into a fully fleshed-out note while preserving existing content.
• Generate Entity — creates a new NPC, location, item, or other entity from a short description, complete with frontmatter and optional stat block.
• Describe Scene — generates atmospheric read-aloud text for a location or session scene.
• Extract Entities — scans a session log or narrative note and creates individual entity files for each named NPC, location, or item.
• Revise Selection — select any text, give a natural-language instruction, and review the AI's changes in a diff before applying.

Documentation

Installation

From Obsidian Community Plugins

1. Open Settings > Community Plugins and turn restricted mode off
2. Click Browse and search for Codex Narrative Engine
3. Click Install, then Enable

Listed as Codex Narrative Engine in the directory.

Via BRAT (prereleases)

BRAT installs from GitHub and can follow prerelease tags on the beta branch.

1. Install BRAT from Settings > Community Plugins (search "BRAT")
2. Open Settings > BRAT > Add Beta Plugin
3. Enter djinnmind/codex-narrative-engine and click Add Plugin
4. Enable Download prereleases in BRAT if you want beta builds
5. Enable Codex Narrative Engine in Settings > Community Plugins

Manual / Sideload

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Create a folder in your vault: .obsidian/plugins/codex-narrative-engine/
3. Copy the downloaded files into that folder.
4. Open Settings > Community Plugins, refresh the list, and enable Codex Narrative Engine.

Building from Source

Requires Node.js 18+.

git clone https://github.com/djinnmind/codex-narrative-engine.git
cd codex-narrative-engine
npm install
npm run build

The built plugin files will be at packages/codex-obsidian/main.js and packages/codex-obsidian/manifest.json.

To develop with hot-reload:

npm run dev

Running Tests

npm test

Runs the codex-core unit test suite (entity indexing, link resolution, diagnostic rules).

Project Structure

packages/
  codex-core/       Editor-agnostic narrative engine (indexing, diagnostics, link resolution)
  codex-obsidian/   Obsidian plugin (UI, commands, vault integration)

codex-core has no dependency on Obsidian and can be reused in other editors.

Feedback

Bugs, questions, and feature requests are welcome on GitHub Issues. There is no Discord yet — the issue tracker is the inbox.

License

MIT