Hop-Link Viewer
sk-obsidian54 downloadsSuggest indirectly linked notes up to N-hops from an anchor note
- Overview
- Scorecard
- Updates6
Suggest notes up to N hops from an anchor note, skipping notes already linked to it by default. Built for serendipitous discovery of missing links in your vault.
What it does
Hop-Link Viewer is a sidebar that walks your vault’s link graph outward from an anchor and lists nearby notes that are not yet connected to it.
A link counts in either direction: notes the anchor points to, and notes that point back. By default the sidebar skips those already-connected notes, so you see missing links instead of the same neighbors Obsidian already shows.
Example
Anchor: Project Alpha, which links to Jane Smith and Budget 2024.
| Distance | Meaning | Shown by default? |
|---|---|---|
| 1-hop | Direct neighbors — Jane, Budget (either direction) | No |
| 2-hop | Linked from Jane or Budget, but not from Project Alpha — e.g. Conference talk, Prior grant | Yes |
| 3-hop | One step further — e.g. a paper cited on Conference talk | Yes, up to your hop depth |
Each suggestion is a clickable link with a hop number (2, 3, …). Turn on Include direct links to also list 1-hop neighbors; those show a linked badge instead of a hop number.
Sidebar
Open it from the ribbon (Open Hop-Link Viewer) or the command palette (Hop-Link Viewer: Open viewer). It shows a hop-depth stepper (synced with Settings), the current anchor and its last-modified time, and up to your display cap of suggestions (default 10).
Click or tap a suggestion to open it. On desktop, Ctrl/Cmd-click or middle-click opens a new tab. The list refreshes when you switch notes, open files, edit, or when link metadata updates. No query language or templates.
Typical uses: spotting related notes while writing, finding “obvious in hindsight” links between clusters, or raising hop depth / shuffling sort order to wander nearby ideas.
Install
Requires Obsidian 1.13.0 or newer.
- Open Settings → Community plugins.
- Turn off Restricted mode if it is on.
- Click Browse, search for Hop-Link Viewer, then install and enable it.
You can also open the community listing, or copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from GitHub Releases into .obsidian/plugins/hop-link-viewer/.
Settings
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hop depth | 3 |
How far to walk from the anchor. Hop 1 appears only with Include direct links. |
| Display cap | 10 |
Maximum suggestions after sorting |
| Excluded folder paths | (empty) | One prefix per line. Hidden from the list only; those notes can still be the anchor, and the walk can still pass through them. |
| Sidebar anchor mode | active-file |
Which note is “you are here” |
| List order | walk-order |
Sort before applying the display cap |
| Include direct links | off | Show 1-hop neighbors with a linked badge |
| Auto-open sidebar on startup | off | Open the sidebar when Obsidian starts |
Anchor mode
The anchor must be a markdown note. If none can be resolved, the sidebar shows “No anchor note found.”
| Mode | Behavior |
|---|---|
active-file |
Markdown note in the focused pane |
last-edited |
Most recently modified markdown file tracked while the plugin was enabled; before the first tracked edit, same fallback as last-viewed |
last-viewed |
Active markdown file if there is one; otherwise the first markdown file in recently opened files |
List order
| Option | Behavior |
|---|---|
walk-order |
Breadth-first discovery order (default) |
mtime-desc |
Most recently modified first |
mtime-asc |
Oldest modified first |
link-count-desc |
Most vault links first |
alphabetical |
Title A–Z |
random |
Shuffled on each refresh |
How it works
- Resolve the anchor from the selected mode.
- Walk an undirected graph of resolved inlinks and outlinks (broken or unresolved links are ignored), up to N hops.
- Keep markdown notes and PDFs as suggestions. Images, canvases, and other attachments are skipped even if they are linked.
- Sort the full candidate set, then apply the display cap. There is no other ranking.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and pull requests.