Table of Contents for GitLab

Create managed tables of contents whose Markdown links follow GitLab 17+ heading-anchor rules, including Unicode lowercasing, punctuation removal, and duplicate-heading suffixes.

This is a GitLab-focused fork of obsidian-plugin-toc by Andrew Lisowski.

Features

• Create a full-document TOC at any cursor position.
• Create a TOC for the next heading level at any cursor position.
• Automatically update any number of managed TOCs after headings are added, renamed, removed, or reordered.
• Exclude individual headings with an invisible HTML comment.
• Toggle heading exclusion from the command palette or the editor right-click menu.
• Generate GitLab-compatible anchors for Unicode, punctuation, and duplicate headings.
• Follow those raw GitLab-compatible links natively inside Obsidian without changing the Markdown.
• Hide managed-TOC comments until the cursor enters the TOC.

Usage

Open the command palette and run one of these commands:

• Create managed table of contents scans the entire note, regardless of where the cursor is located.
• Create managed table of contents for next heading level uses the closest heading above the TOC as its parent and lists that section's shallowest eligible child level. At the top of a note, it lists the shallowest eligible heading level in the document.
• Toggle current heading exclusion from generated TOCs adds or removes the exclusion marker on the current heading.
• Update managed tables of contents now immediately refreshes all generated TOCs in the note.

The editor right-click menu also offers both TOC creation actions. While the cursor is on a Markdown heading, it additionally offers Exclude heading from generated TOCs or Include heading in generated TOCs.

Managed TOCs

The plugin surrounds generated content with HTML comments:

<!-- toc-gitlab:start mode=full -->
- [Example](#example)
<!-- toc-gitlab:end -->

These comments do not render in Obsidian, GitLab, or ordinary Markdown viewers. Do not remove them if you want the TOC to update automatically. TOCs created by older versions are plain text and must be recreated once to become managed.

Multiple managed TOCs in one note are supported. Automatic updates are enabled by default and can be disabled in the plugin settings.

Excluding a heading

Add <!-- toc-ignore --> at the end of an ATX-style Markdown heading:

## Internal notes <!-- toc-ignore -->

The heading still renders normally and still receives its normal GitLab anchor, but it is omitted from every generated TOC. The marker can be added or removed through the command palette or editor right-click menu.

Settings

Generated entries always use standard Markdown section links such as [Example](#example). This is the documented same-page link syntax across GitLab 17, 18, and 19; unlike Obsidian WikiLinks, it cannot be reinterpreted as a GitLab wiki-page link. Existing managed TOCs are converted the next time they update.

The plugin intercepts Obsidian's native link router at runtime, maps GitLab fragments to their real headings, and uses temporary in-memory block targets for exact navigation—including duplicate headings. The raw Markdown remains GitLab-compatible and no compatibility plugin is required.

Installation

Install from the Obsidian community plugin browser when available, or download the latest release and place main.js and manifest.json in:

<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/toc-gitlab/

Then reload Obsidian and enable Table of Contents for GitLab under Community plugins.

Development

npm ci
npm test
npm run build
npm run lint