Lean Terminal

An embedded terminal panel for Obsidian, powered by xterm.js and node-pty. Run shell commands directly inside your vault workspace - no external windows needed.

Desktop only. Requires Obsidian 1.5.0+.

Features

Terminal Core

• Full PTY terminal (not a simple command runner) with interactive shell support
• Auto-detects your shell: PowerShell 7 (including Microsoft Store installs) / Windows PowerShell / cmd.exe on Windows, $SHELL on macOS/Linux; execution policy bypass applied automatically so shell-integration scripts are never blocked
• Startup command: configure a command that runs automatically in every new tab once the shell is ready (e.g. claude, npm run dev)
• Clipboard support: Ctrl+V / Cmd+V paste, Ctrl+C / Cmd+C copy (with selection)
• Clickable URLs in terminal output
• Auto-resize as the panel resizes
• Shift+Enter inserts a newline without submitting (muscle memory for Claude Code users)
• Note: Fullscreen mode in detached windows is not supported — terminal content will not reflow to the new width until a command is executed

Tab Management

• Multiple tabs with rename, color-coding, and pinning support
• Drag tabs to reorder them in the tab bar
• Keyboard shortcuts: Next/Previous (with wrap-around), Jump to Tab 1-8, Jump to last - bindable under Settings > Hotkeys
• Tab bar positioning: Top (default), Left, or Right side for wide-monitor layouts

Vault Integration

• Opens in vault root by default; command palette to open in the current file's folder; right-click any file or folder to open a terminal there
• Drag files or images from the Obsidian file explorer or Windows Explorer into the terminal to insert the absolute path (spaces auto-quoted); paste clipboard images directly to attach in Claude Code sessions
• Clickable file paths: any valid file path in terminal output becomes a clickable link to open the file in a new tab (recognizes Windows drive letters, vault-relative paths, and quoted paths with spaces)
• Wiki-link autocomplete: type [[ in the terminal to pick any vault note and insert as a wiki-link, vault-relative path, or absolute path

Search & Selection

• In-terminal search bar (Ctrl+Alt+F): match counter, case-sensitive toggle, and highlight decorations
• Copy on select: automatically copies selected text to the clipboard as you highlight

Appearance & Configuration

• 12 built-in color themes (Obsidian Dark, Obsidian Light, Monokai, Solarized Dark, and more); extend or override via themes.json
• Auto theme: terminal theme automatically follows Obsidian's dark/light mode toggle (new default for fresh installs)
• Custom background color override with color picker (match your vault theme)
• Customizable ribbon and panel tab icon (any Lucide icon name)
• Configurable: per-OS shell path (separate Windows / macOS / Linux settings), font size, font family, cursor style (block/bar/underline), cursor blink, scrollback, panel location

Sessions & Persistence

• Session persistence: tab names, colors, working directories, and scrollback are restored when Obsidian reopens
• Rescue recently closed tabs from the command palette (ring buffer of the last 10 sessions)
• Notification sounds when background tab commands finish (4 sound types, adjustable volume)
• Optional Claude Code integration: auto-maintained session registry with clickable Resume links and URI handler

Extensibility

• Public registerKeyHandler() API: downstream plugins can compose custom key handlers that run before built-in autocomplete/search handling, enabling terminal customization without forking

Installation

Via Obsidian Community Plugins (recommended)

1. Open Settings > Community Plugins
2. Search for "Lean Terminal"
3. Click Install
4. Enable the plugin in Settings > Community Plugins
5. Go to Settings > Terminal > Download binaries and click Download - this fetches the native terminal binary for your platform (the platform-specific node-pty zip from the GitHub release; Obsidian itself only uses main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css)
6. Open the terminal via the ribbon icon or command palette

Or install directly: community.obsidian.md/plugins/lean-terminal

Troubleshooting Binary Download (ARM64 Windows)

If you see "Failed to download binaries" on an ARM64 Windows device (Surface Pro X, Windows Dev Kit, etc.):

1. Close all terminal tabs in Obsidian (the binary may be locked in use)
2. Disable the plugin in Settings, then re-enable it
3. Restart Obsidian completely (not just reload)
4. Manually delete the plugin's node_modules folder: browse to .obsidian/plugins/lean-terminal/node_modules/ in your vault and delete it
5. Try downloading binaries again

If the issue persists, check that:

• You have write permissions to the plugin directory
• Your .obsidian folder is not synced to a cloud service (OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox) that may lock files during sync
• Your antivirus software is not blocking file extraction

Via BRAT (beta releases)

1. Install the BRAT plugin if you don't have it
2. Open Settings > BRAT > Add Beta Plugin
3. Enter: sdkasper/lean-obsidian-terminal
4. Enable the plugin in Settings > Community Plugins
5. Download binaries and enable as above

Manual Installation

1. Clone this repository
2. Run npm install && npm run build
3. Run node install.mjs "/path/to/your/vault"
4. Restart Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings > Community Plugins

How It Works

The plugin uses xterm.js for terminal rendering and node-pty for native pseudo-terminal support. node-pty spawns a real shell process (PowerShell, bash, etc.) and connects its stdin/stdout to xterm.js via Obsidian's Electron runtime. This gives you a fully interactive terminal - not just command execution.

On Windows, the plugin uses the ConPTY backend (correct UTF-8 and emoji support). A patched windowsConoutConnection.js replaces node-pty's Worker thread with inline socket piping so ConPTY works inside Obsidian's Electron renderer, which does not support Worker thread construction.

Key Handler API (for plugin developers)

Companion plugins can add their own terminal key bindings — Mac-style line navigation, Vim/Emacs bindings, vendor remaps — without forking, via a small public API on the plugin instance:

registerKeyHandler(
  handler: (e: KeyboardEvent, session: TerminalSession) => boolean
): () => void   // returns an unregister function

Execution order. Registered handlers run in registration order, before the built-in autocomplete/search handling:

custom[0] → custom[1] → … → custom[n] → built-in autocomplete/search

Return semantics. Return true to let the next handler (and ultimately the built-in handling) run; return false to consume the event and stop the chain. Handlers see every event type (keydown, keyup, keypress) — filter on e.type === "keydown" as below. A handler that throws is logged and skipped, never breaking the chain.

Event type note: the handler receives the DOM KeyboardEvent that xterm.js passes to attachCustomKeyEventHandler (with metaKey, altKey, key, type, preventDefault(), …) — not xterm's internal IKeyboardEvent, which is not part of @xterm/xterm's public type surface.

Example — Mac-style line navigation in a companion plugin:

const leanTerm = this.app.plugins.plugins["lean-terminal"];
const unregister = leanTerm.registerKeyHandler((e, session) => {
  if (e.type !== "keydown") return true;
  if (e.metaKey && e.key === "ArrowLeft")  { session.pty.write("\x01"); return false; } // ^A → start of line
  if (e.metaKey && e.key === "ArrowRight") { session.pty.write("\x05"); return false; } // ^E → end of line
  if (e.altKey  && e.key === "ArrowLeft")  { session.pty.write("\x1bb"); return false; } // ⎋b → back one word
  if (e.altKey  && e.key === "ArrowRight") { session.pty.write("\x1bf"); return false; } // ⎋f → forward one word
  return true;
});

// Call the returned disposer in your plugin's onunload():
this.register(unregister);

See Key Handler API for the full reference.

Related documents

See Usage for the full command reference.

See Settings for all configuration options.

See Session Persistence for how tab state is saved and restored.

See Claude Code Integration for setup and usage.

See URI Handler for the obsidian://lean-terminal protocol reference.

See Key Handler API for the downstream key-handler registration API.

See Security for the security review summary.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for release history and feature documentation by version.

Feedback

Use this repo to report bugs, request features, or ask questions.

• Report a Bug
• Request a Feature
• Report a Performance Issue
• Ask a Question / Share Feedback

If you want to support my work, you can use this link to buy me a drink - thank you, I appreciate you.

Development

npm install
npm run dev          # Watch mode (auto-rebuild on save)
npm run build        # Production build
node install.mjs     # Install to default vault (D:\LOS Test)

Contributors

This plugin is built and maintained by a dedicated community. Special thanks to:

• @FarhadGSRX - Session persistence, session rescue buffer, Claude Code integration with registry generation and resume links, color scheme catalog with themes.json support
• @ckelsoe - Per-tab color tint customization with editable palette, wiki-link autocomplete with path-insertion modes
• @c00llin - Terminal location options (Tab Right, Split Tab Right)
• @kkugot - Emoji rendering fixes, system theme detection with terminal color reporting protocol
• @CHodder5 - Zsh startup file forwarding (.zshenv and .zprofile) via ZDOTDIR override

License

MIT