Primary Simplified

Primary Simplified is a warm, quiet Obsidian theme based on the original Primary theme by Cecilia May.

It keeps the soft Primary palette, rounded interface details, readable typography, expressive checkboxes, and friendly callouts, but trims the theme down to the parts that make sense in a current Obsidian vault. The result is less busy than the original Primary, while still keeping its recognizable feel.

What It Feels Like

Primary Simplified is meant for everyday writing and note work. It favors calm contrast, compact controls, and enough color to make tasks, callouts, folders, and active UI states easy to scan.

The theme includes:

• light and dark palettes
• alternative checkbox icons enabled by default
• tuned callout colors
• folder and bookmark color presets
• optional layout density and accent palette choices
• reduced-motion and forced-colors support
• Obsidian 1.13+ surfaces, including Bases
• per-note helper classes compatible with Minimal's cssclasses contract (image grids, block widths, table styling, cards) — see minimal.guide/features/helper-classes for the full class reference

Install

When Primary Simplified is available in Community Themes:

1. Open Settings > Appearance in Obsidian.
2. Choose Manage next to Themes.
3. Search for Primary Simplified.
4. Install and use it.

For manual installation:

1. Download manifest.json and theme.css from a release.
2. Create this folder in your vault: <vault>/.obsidian/themes/Primary Simplified/.
3. Put both files in that folder.
4. Reload Obsidian.
5. Select Primary Simplified in Settings > Appearance > Themes.

Style Settings

The theme works without the Style Settings plugin. The default look, including alternative checkbox icons, is built into the theme itself.

If you install the optional Style Settings plugin, Primary Simplified adds a small set of controls for the choices people are most likely to adjust:

• accent palette
• layout density
• heading scale
• colorful headings
• reduced motion
• popup blur
• ribbon and status bar behavior
• editor background
• active-line highlight
• title lines under H1 and inline title
• link underlines
• alternative checkbox icons
• note embed titles
• folder and bookmark color presets

Use Obsidian's built-in Appearance settings for font families, accent color, and editor font size.

Attribution

Primary Simplified is an independent fork of Primary. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Cecilia May or the original Primary project.

The original Primary theme remains available from Obsidian's Community Themes directory. If you want to support Cecilia May's original work, visit the author's Ko-fi page.

The image grid, cards, and list-cards helper classes are adapted from Minimal by Steph Ango (@kepano), used under Minimal's MIT license (notice included in theme.css).

License

Primary Simplified is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. The repository keeps the original copyright and license notices from Primary, and the MIT license notice for the Minimal-derived helper-class rules noted above.