stnd.buildSTANDARD MANUAL2026-07-15

2.6 Obsidian Plugin

Complete user guide for the Standard Garden Obsidian plugin features, automation rules, and settings.

2.6 Obsidian Plugin

The Garden Obsidian plugin transforms your local Obsidian vault into a modern, automated writing workshop. It manages local design tokens, compiles stylesheet snippets, assists link navigation, automates folder rules, and publishes notes directly to your online garden.

1. Sync & Publishing (Garden)

The publishing engine connects your local vault to the standard.garden web platform. It reconciles content between your local files and your public web pages, handling assets and metadata automatically.

Sync Direction Modes

  • One-way (Obsidian → Garden): (Default & Recommended) This mode guarantees absolute local safety. Changes are pushed from Obsidian to the Garden, but local files are never modified or deleted. Even if a post is deleted online, it will be republished on the next sync if it remains marked for publishing locally.
  • Two-way (Reconciliation): Standard bidirectional reconciliation. The version with the most recent modification time (mtime) wins on conflict. Notes created online are downloaded to your vault, and notes deleted online are unmarked locally.

Automated Background Tasks

  • Sync on Startup: Runs a full synchronization 5 seconds after Obsidian loads, ensuring your public garden is up-to-date right away without slowing down application launch.
  • Background Sync Interval: Periodically runs the synchronization engine in the background (Disabled, 15m, 30m, 1h, 4h, 12h) to keep everything in sync automatically.

Manual Actions

  • Sync Now: Triggers a complete synchronization task instantly.
  • Download New Online Notes: Scans your online garden for new posts that do not exist locally and pulls them into your vault. This is safe: it never overwrites or modifies any of your existing local files.

Configuration

  • Publish Key: The frontmatter key that triggers sync and publication (default: publish). If set to true (e.g., publish: true) or a status (e.g., publish: public), the note is added to the sync task.
  • Open After Publish: Automatically opens your default web browser to the public page URL after you publish or push a note.
  • Publish Status Location: Where the publication indicator is displayed:
    • Title bar (Note header): Displays a subtle icon at the top of the active note.
    • Status bar: Shows the status in Obsidian’s bottom-right tray.
    • Ribbon bar: Adds an action icon to the left ribbon.
    • Hidden: Disable status indicator.

2. Hot Folder

Hot Folder automates metadata injection based on vault structure. When a note is created in or moved to a folder, specified frontmatter rules are automatically applied.

  • Automation Rules: Set a folder path (e.g. Log/Journal/) and define properties (e.g., type: journal, tags: [log, journal]).
  • No Clutter: Rules are run instantly and only write missing keys, preserving any custom metadata you have already written.
  • Manual Application: Run the Apply rules to current file command via Obsidian’s command palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P) to re-trigger folder rules manually on the active file.

3. Themes & Design System

The design system turns frontmatter design tokens into live CSS styles on Obsidian’s workspace container.

  • Standard Theme: Injects base typography, color palettes, and vertical rhythm.
  • Theme Note Snapping: Setting theme: name in frontmatter will search your vault for a note named name.md containing CSS code blocks and apply them as a theme snippet.
  • Clear Cache: Forces the plugin to reload all markdown-based themes from the vault.

4. Snippet Manager

Snippet Manager compiles and registers stylesheet snippets directly from markdown files in your vault.

  • Write CSS directly in markdown notes inside Obsidian inside ```css code blocks.
  • The compiler extracts, joins, and hot-loads the code in real-time, removing the need to edit hidden .obsidian/snippets/ files.
  • No Flash: Compilation cache (cache-global.css) is persisted locally so styles are applied synchronously at startup, eliminating the flash of unstyled content while files are read.

Link Assist optimizes vault interconnections, backlinks, and reading experiences.

  • Blocked Tag: Excludes notes carrying a specific tag (default: backlink-exclude) from showing in backlinks and suggestions.
  • Hide Linked Mentions: Collapses already linked mentions in the backlink panel to highlight unlinked opportunities.
  • Only Last Link Clickable: Restricts multiple repeat wikilinks to the same note in a paragraph so only the last occurrence is clickable, improving readability.
  • Hide Unlinked If Linked: Prevents showing an unlinked mention in a note if a direct link to that target already exists in the same section.
  • Local Cross Filters: Defines advanced context-aware rules to hide mentions (e.g., hide mentions if the active note has #personal and the linked note has #work).

6. Scroll Map

Scroll Map renders a subtle, interactive visual guide on the side of the editor scrollbar.

  • Maps headings (H1, H2, H3) to visual blocks on the scrollbar.
  • Shows depth and structure at a glance, allowing quick vertical navigation in long notes.
  • Customize position (Right, Left, Top, Bottom), width, and opacity.

7. Media Manager

Media Manager automatically intercepts newly pasted or dropped images and media assets to keep your vault clean.

  • Smart Rename: Replaces default names like Pasted image 2026… with clean, unique, search-friendly timestamps (e.g., 260623_1425_asset.png).
  • Attachment Folder: Automatically moves new assets to a dedicated attachments folder (e.g., Kernel/attachments/), preventing root folder clutter.
  • Exclusion Lists: Define folders where Media Manager should not intercept media files (e.g., folders containing raw imports or archives).
  • Timestamp Regex: Exclude files that already contain a timestamp to avoid double-prefixing.

8. General & Zen

General Preferences manages layout streamlining and reading focus.

  • Zen Mode: Radical minimalism. Hides the vault name, file explorer header, status bar, and tab header if only one tab is open. Re-reveals them smoothly on mouse hover.
  • Auto-Hide Sidebars: Collapses the left and right splits and the ribbon. Hovering near the edge of the screen brings them back.
  • Truncate Long Filenames: Prevents text overflow in the file explorer by appending clean ellipses (…) to long titles.
  • Default Reading Mode: Enforces reading mode globally unless overridden in frontmatter (mode: edit, mode: source).
  • Focus Last Line on Mobile: Automatically positions cursor at the very bottom of the document on mobile devices.

9. System Tray

System Tray keeps Obsidian alive in the background when you close the main window, ensuring sync tasks, hot folders, and other automations continue running uninterrupted.

  • System Tray Toggle: Intercepts the window close event and minimizes Obsidian to the system tray instead of quitting. A tray icon lets you restore the window or fully quit the application at any time.
  • Hide on Launch: Launches Obsidian directly to the tray without showing the main window. Ideal when Obsidian is configured as a login startup item and you want it ready in the background without visual interruption.

Note: System tray features are only available on desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux).

10. Base64 Fold

Base64 Fold keeps notes clean and readable by automatically collapsing long base64-encoded strings (embedded images, fonts, binary data) into a compact, expandable badge.

  • Detection: Folds any base64 string longer than 100 characters in both the source editor and reading view.
  • Expandable Badge: The folded string is replaced by a clickable badge showing the encoding type and approximate size. Click once to reveal the full string, click again to collapse.
  • Non-destructive: The original base64 data is never modified — only the display is folded. Exporting or copying the note preserves the full content.

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