Quick Ask

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Ask about the passage, right where you read it.

A focused AI sidebar for your Obsidian notes, papers and images. Explain a term, compare notes, or turn a section into review questions — drag in your material and ask.

Get started · User guide · Releases · Help & feedback

Why Quick Ask?

• Less copying, more reading. Drag a passage or file into the sidebar, or type [[ to choose a file. Decide exactly which notes the conversation can access.
• Pick up where you left off. Conversations stay local. Original selections remain above their questions, with the full quote available on hover.
• Your models, your way of asking. Save multiple connections, use Responses or Chat Completions, and switch between Literature Reading, Study Quiz and your own roles for new conversations.
• Bring more than text. Drop in an image or paste a screenshot. Enable web search when you need online information.
• Keep the conversation going. Added files are tracked for changes; long conversations can compact model context while keeping the full local history.
• At home in Obsidian. Theme-aware bubbles, readable reasoning, adjustable text and a resizable input area.

Lightweight: about 1.3 MiB installed (≈306 KiB gzipped). No telemetry or developer-operated backend.

Get started

Requires Obsidian 1.13.7+ on desktop.

1. In Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for Quick Ask, install and enable it.
2. Open Quick Ask → Model connections. Add your Base URL and named API secret, then choose a model and its protocol.
3. Open the sidebar, drag in a passage or add a file with [[, and send your question.

Connection/model and role changes apply to new conversations. Use your own provider API access; model/search fees are separate from the free plugin. Mobile and PDF input are not supported.

Manual installation and full setup →

Explore

• User guide — model connections, roles, reasoning, images, search, compaction and backups.
• Provider search setup — supported endpoints and credentials.
• Changelog — changes included in each version.

Your data

History is stored locally. Submitting a question sends its selected context to your configured provider; model discovery and enabled search also make network requests. There is no background polling, and the plugin cannot edit notes or search arbitrary Vault files.

Read the network, costs and privacy details, including what image exports contain and how cached files are retained.

Help & contribute

Questions, bugs or ideas? Open an issue. Include versions and reproduction steps; for layout issues, add your theme and a screenshot. Keep API keys and private notes out of reports.

For local builds and contributions, see the development guide and maintainer workflow.

License

Copyright 2026 FRANK-SMITH · Apache License 2.0 · NOTICE. Dependency licenses are included in main.js and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.