Original video in Chinese.
Key Takeaway
- Obsidian is an ideal tool for building a personal note system, and combining it with AI plugins can enable a “second brain.”
- The Text Generator plugin can turn Obsidian into built-in ChatGPT, supporting summarization, brainstorming, outlining, generating tags, and more, with customizable templates.
- The Copilot plugin provides free-form Q&A, note-based interaction, and knowledge base querying, supporting multiple LLMs and web-connected search.
- These two AI plugins can greatly improve Obsidian’s efficiency and functionality, making it more powerful for note-taking, content generation, and knowledge management.
- The article emphasizes the assistive role of AI in note systems, as well as the advantages of Obsidian as a local note-taking app.
Full Content
Now is the best time to build a personal note system. Just as I said in Knowledge Planet newtype:
Our brains are not suited for remembering things; they should be used for creative work. Now that we have large language model technology and AI, note systems have taken a qualitative leap—whether you want to query or generate, it’s incredibly convenient. This is what a true Second Brain, a second brain, really is.
In the last video, I shared my personal AI note system. This whole system is like a funnel, filtering and refining the massive amount of external information I come into contact with every day, layer by layer, until it finally becomes the most distilled notes and is internalized as my own.
For the note-taking part, I use Obsidian. This software is very well known overseas, but it is still very niche in China. Later, I’ll make more videos about it based on my own experience. I’m very sure that once you try it, you’ll definitely understand why I recommend it so strongly.
In this video, I’ll first introduce two AI plugins in Obsidian. They’re very useful and very important.
OK, no more talking—let’s start with the first plugin.
Text Generator
Text Generator is the plugin I use most frequently. You can think of it as ChatGPT built into Obsidian. For example:
- When a note has too much content, I can have it help me summarize and simplify it;
- Based on selected content, I can have it help me brainstorm and come up with more ideas;
- I can also have it help me draft article outlines, come up with titles, or generate tags based on the note content—so I don’t have to spend ages thinking about it every time, always worried that I’ll forget to tag something.
These uses are just like how you used ChatGPT before. The only difference is that all the commands and prompts have been turned into templates, so you don’t need to type them in yourself. If you have specific needs, you can go straight into the script and modify it—it’s very easy.
To install this plugin, go to [Settings] > [Community plugins], then click [Browse], enter the plugin name, and finally download and enable it.
Once that’s done, there’s a [Text Generator: Templates Packages Manager] button in the left sidebar. After opening it, you can download ready-made templates. These templates are stored in your Vault, in a folder called textgenerator.
Inside the folder, you can look through what each template means one by one; they’re all very simple English.
For example, summarize. The “context” in parentheses means the context, that is, the note content you selected. This line tells the AI what content you want to process. The next line, “prompt: summarize the content,” means exactly what it says: tell the AI to summarize the content in the context.
To use it in a note, press the shortcut key to open the command palette, type “text,” and find “Generate & Insert” in the dropdown list. Then find “Summarize” inside it and click to run it.
After a few seconds, we’ll see that the AI has indeed summarized it—but in English. At this point, we just need to make a tiny change to the template and add “in Chinese” to the Prompt, and that’s it.
Run it again, and now the output will be in Chinese.
See, modifying a ready-made template is that simple. In fact, you can even create your own templates using the same format according to your own needs—that’s the part I like most about this plugin.
If you think the steps just now are a bit troublesome, you can also set a keyboard shortcut. That way, you can open “Generate & Insert” with one click and then choose the template you want to use.
Of course, you can also skip templates entirely and just click the “Generate” button on the left. The AI will freely expand based on the meaning of the context.
Copilot
The second plugin I want to recommend is Copilot.
Text Generator mainly works through templates and on a single note. But what if I just want free-form Q&A? What if I want to generate something based on all my notes? That’s where Copilot comes in.
I usually use this plugin in these three situations.
First, chat + search.
Honestly, I find it annoying that every time I want to use an LLM, I have to open another webpage, like ChatGPT. I think that if you’re a productivity tool, you should have LLM capabilities built in. It’s the same when taking notes. If I still have to switch from Obsidian to a browser, that really disrupts my train of thought.
So it’s pretty good that Copilot can provide a chat box like this on the right side of the software. I can switch directly to whichever LLM I want to use. If I want to do a simple web search, I switch to Open Router. It’s an LLM aggregation platform. I use Perplexity through it for searching.
That way, I can do what I need to do right inside Obsidian, without needing help from any other software—that’s very important to me.
Second, interact based on notes.
Copilot has a particularly thoughtful feature: this Send Note button below. After clicking it, the currently open note is automatically sent to the AI, which removes the middle step and lets you start the conversation directly.
Every time I finish writing a script, I send the script to the AI and have it generate an outline for me. From the outline, I can tell whether the logic of the script is clear. If the outline summarized by the AI is a bit messy, then there must be a problem with my logic; otherwise, the AI would definitely be able to summarize it clearly.
Good video content always starts with clear, direct logic. On that basis, you then refine the point of view and the opening. AI can still help with that. I’ve gone off track—let’s move on to the next one.
Third, knowledge base.
I mentioned this feature in the last video. Copilot can use all your notes as reference material to answer your questions. And its answers always include the source notes.
So you can think of this feature as search. For example, when you really can’t remember something or you’re too lazy to dig through thousands of notes, just ask Copilot and let the AI help you find it. You can also have the AI directly generate new content based on all your notes. Of course, the premise is that you already have a rough idea yourself; otherwise, it’s just pure luck and the efficiency is very low.
Finally, both of these plugins support various LLMs. The one I used in the demo just now was GPT-4. In fact, you can also use local LLMs through Ollama and LM Studio. The setup is very simple, so I won’t say much more.
OK, that’s all for this episode. If you have any questions for me, come to Knowledge Planet newtype. See you next time!
Keep Practicing
A plugin is only one way to connect. If you’re still deciding what AI should do inside Obsidian, you can first look at Obsidian AI Workflow; if you want an external AI client to read and manage notes, then see Use Cases and Configuration for Obsidian MCP.