Smart Vault Sync

AI-assisted two-way sync between your Obsidian vault and GitHub — including nested folders as separate repos — without ever touching a terminal.

Most git-based Obsidian sync plugins assume you know git. This one doesn't. Three things make it different:

🧩 Real submodule support, not just one repo

Map any folder in your vault to its own GitHub repo. Keep personal notes private, sync a Projects/ folder with your team, push a Blog/ folder to a public repo — all from the same vault, each with independent sync settings. Adding a submodule is a single dialog: paste a URL, type a folder name, done.

🤖 AI-drafted commit messages

Built in, optional. Let DeepSeek or Gemini read your diff and propose a clean semantic commit message (feat: …, fix: …, docs: …). You always get to edit before committing. Tokens stay local, only the diff goes to the LLM, and you can exclude any path patterns from being sent.

👶 Designed for users who don't know git

• Setup wizard walks you through token → identity → first repo connection
• ? icon next to the token field opens GitHub's PAT creation page directly — no need to know what a "personal access token" is
• Empty repos are auto-initialized. Create a new repo on github.com, paste the URL, click Add. The plugin silently seeds it with a README so git is happy. No "branch yet to be born" errors.
• Test connection diagnoses three layers (token validity, repo access, actual git auth path) and tells you exactly which step is failing, in plain language. No more 403 mysteries.
• Conflict UI — when local and remote diverge, you get a side-by-side resolve dialog, not a half-merged repo on disk.

Installation

Community plugins (once approved)

1. Open Settings → Community plugins
2. Click Browse, search for Smart Vault Sync
3. Click Install, then Enable

Manual install

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
2. Copy them into <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/smart-vault-sync/
3. Restart Obsidian, then enable Smart Vault Sync under Settings → Community plugins

Getting started

The setup wizard appears automatically on first launch. Three short steps:

1. Paste a GitHub Personal Access Token. Click the ? icon next to the input to open the GitHub token page. Either format works:
   • Classic (ghp_…) — needs the repo scope
   • Fine-grained (github_pat_…) — give it Contents: read & write on the repos you'll sync
2. Connect your main vault to a GitHub repo. Paste the HTTPS URL. The plugin handles the initial commit, push, and (if the repo is empty) seeds it so the first sync works.
3. (Optional) Add submodules from the dashboard. One submodule per folder you want in its own repo.

How your data is stored

Secrets never leave your device. The plugin's own .gitignore excludes .obsidian/, and .github-sync.json's schema has no token fields at all — there's no path by which the plugin can leak credentials into a commit.

Troubleshooting

Permission denied or 403 on push. Open Settings → Smart Vault Sync → Test connection. The third row (git auth) exercises the same credential path your sync uses. If that row fails while the API rows pass, your local git is using stale credentials (most commonly the macOS Keychain) — erase the cached entry or rotate the token.

Token sticks around after uninstall. Obsidian preserves plugin data across reinstalls by design. To fully wipe credentials, delete <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/smart-vault-sync/data.json.

License

MIT