Find Smart Connections in the Obsidian Community plugins.

Install and enable, that is it

A local model starts creating embeddings right away. No extra apps, no CLI tools, and no API key required.

Open it from the left ribbon (Connections icon) or from the command palette by running the Open: Connection view command.

Using the Connections view

Connections view results update automatically when you change notes. The name of the current note appears at the bottom left of the Connections view.

• Result score (yellow underline)
  The score reflects semantic similarity between the result and the current note. Exact numbers depend on the embedding model.
• Show or hide content (magenta)
  Expand or collapse individual results. Use the top row button to expand or collapse all.
• Play / pause updates (orange)
  Control whether the Connections view automatically updates when you change notes.
• Lookup query (teal)
  Opens the Lookup view for a semantic search across your vault.

[!NOTE] Semantic search
Semantic queries do not behave like plain text search. A note that contains the exact query text might not appear if it is not actually similar in meaning.

Interacting with connection results

• Drag a result into a note to create a link.
• Hold Cmd or Ctrl while hovering over a result to show Obsidian's Hover Preview.

Hiding and unhiding connections

Right click a result to hide it from the list:

Right click any result and use Unhide all to bring hidden items back:

Open it from the ribbon (Lookup icon) or from the command palette by running the Open: Lookup view command.

[!NOTE] Semantic search
Semantic queries do not work like regular search queries. For example, a note containing the exact query text may not be returned in the results.

• Click the random connection icon in the ribbon, or
• Run the Open: Random note from connections command from the command palette.

Note: the random connection command requires the Connections view to be active.

Examples of Pro features:

• Inline connections
  Small badges in the editor that show how many strong matches a block has, with a pop-over of related blocks and notes.
• Footer connections
  A persistent panel that updates as you type so high value connections stay visible while you write.
• Configurable scoring and ranking
  Choose different algorithms for how results are scored and optionally add a rerank stage.
• Connections in Bases
  Use score_connection and list_connections in Obsidian Bases to show similarity columns and related note lists in tables.
• Advanced filters and models
  Extra Smart Environment controls for embeddings, collections, and include or exclude rules.
• Early release experiments
  New ideas launch in Early channels first so supporters can shape how they evolve.

Connections Pro is part of the Pro plugins family and is available to active project supporters. It is still built on the same source-available Smart Environment. Supporting Pro helps fund development of all Smart Plugins and the free core.

Examples of events you might see:

• Initial indexing complete for your vault
• Sources reimported after model changes
• Warnings when exclusions block indexing on specific folders or files

Objectives of the new Events system:

• make the environment inspectable and understandable
• reduce the number of Obsidian native notifications

• "Smart Connections is truly the best new plugin of the year. Please keep it up!" - Larry
• "Brian, you've done a great job. Smart Connections is the best Obsidian plugin ever." - Es
• "I really do love the app. It saved me from having to buy Mems and stick with Obsidian." - Greg
• "Thanks for making Smart Connections. I use it every day and it has completely changed the game." - Joe
• "I am glad to see your updates on smart connections in the new year. Thank you for your selfless contribution." - 嘿然笑道
• "Love this app! V2 looks to have an awesome feature as well. Keep up the great work." - Austin
• "I wanted to show my support for Smart Connections and would love to not only get early access to Version 2.0, but help out wherever I can. Thanks!!" - Danny
• "Great plugin, use it as my standard right pane." - Guenter
• "I believe it one of the best plugin for Obsidian!" - Viktor
• "Thank you for the great plugin. I definitely had to vote for it :)" - Marc
• "Good luck and great work on the plugin so far!" - Harpreet
• "Thank you again for your amazing plugin." - Eduardo
• "Hey, thanks for a great app." - Robert
• "Smart Connections is a really great program, and I am looking forward to working with v2.0." - Jarrett
• "Keep up the great work ♡" - Duke
• "Such an amazing plug-in. Thanks for supercharging my notes!" - Simon
• "Thank you for the plugin! It looks very promising, I am still exploring it." - Damien
• "Big thanks to you for creating such a slick tool. Excited to see where it goes!" - Khael
• "Thank you for this amazing tool!" - Pablo
• "Keep up the good work :-)" - Dorian
• "Thanks for your work on Smart Connections. Excited for v2" - Eli
• "Absolutely love what you're doing here and I can't wait to see how this plugin continues to grow over the next year!" - Ryan
• "You're crushing it!" - Chad
• "Way to go, Brian. Smart Connections Rocks!" - Arne
• "Tks a lot for the effort you put in this tool!" - Marcelo
• "Thanks for a great plug-in BTW." - Ali
• "Thanks for the plugin ! It really helps in my work :)" - Jordan
• "I am just discovering it, but enjoying it so far!" - Nick
• "Thank you for all your work on Smart Connections." - Ed
• "In my top 3 of the most useful plugins." - Mickaël
• "Thank you for your hard work. - from South Korea" - 오송인
• "I love this extension so much. So many potential features by the way."
• "This plugin is fantastic"
• "This is a terrific idea"
• "This plugins could be a Game changer!"
• "I personally love the app"
• "This app is such a game changer"
• "Absolutely LOVE this plugin"
• "Smart-connections is a fantastic plugin"
• "Hi, amazing plugin! 🔥"
• "Absolutely mind blowing"
• "I love this plugin"
• "Now it serves me as a way to brainstorm potential connections, and I have seen major improvements over the past few months. I especially enjoy using it as part of my book digestion and relation process."
• "this is just such an incredible plugin!"
• "Tried it, and it worked as well as I could hope! Thanks for making this."
• "This is an amazing extension."
• This is really cool...
• "This is an amazing plugin!"
• "With smart connections, by just opening one such note, I can find all the others that reference the concept"
• "Has amazing potential to unlock lots of new info that can be added to your vault"
• "Great plugin!"
• "Loving the plugin so far!"
• "Smart Connections is so cool. I'm noticing similarities between notes that talk about the same thing but don't share any words."
• "Thanks for doing this. I love the idea to have OpenAI help look through my notes to find connections"

Smart Chat is no longer bundled inside Smart Connections, as planned in the last major release, it has been moved to its own dedicated plugin. You can now install Smart Chat directly from the Obsidian Community plugins or learn more here.

To keep the Core Smart Connections plugin simple and “just works,” all API‑based model integrations (cloud and local) have moved into Smart Chat Pro, the Pro version of the Smart Chat plugin. This lets advanced model routing and multi‑provider support be maintained sustainably, while the free Smart Plugins stay focused on essential core features that work with third-party interfaces like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.

For more about Pro plugins, read Introducing Pro Plugins.

Smart Connections is one piece of a larger ecosystem of local first, user aligned tools. I build Smart Plugins to explore new ideas, ship practical workflows, and keep complexity manageable inside Obsidian. Smart Connections is the piece that handles the space between notes (connections).

Most AI features need continuous maintenance. As providers and APIs change, deeply configurable options require far more support, testing, and refactoring than simple defaults.

Introducing Pro plugins: how the project stays sustainable without compromising the open core. Core Smart Plugins remain free and source available. Pro plugins sit on top of that core, built on the same open Smart Environment. They do not remove the essentials from the free plugins; instead they collect advanced options in one place and fund the work needed to maintain them. Pro plugins (including Connections Pro) are available to all past project supporters. Not yet a supporter? Get Pro plugins here.

Smart Environment is the shared local core that powers Smart Connections, Smart Chat, and the rest of the Smart Ecosystem.

• It keeps an up to date index of your notes using embeddings.
• It listens for Obsidian events so indexing and stats stay in sync with your vault.
• It gives you one place to manage models, sources, and exclusions across all Smart Plugins.

Smart Environment is undergoing major upgrades to better enable local-first AI tooling. If you have joined Community Lean Coffee sessions, you have already seen glimpses of what this future looks like.

In short, Smart Environment aims to be your local-first core: a PKM inspired backend for your personal data that will eventually let you vibe code your own frontend components on top of your notes.