Getting Started with Obsidian and GitHub

#obsidian #github

Using GitHub with Obsidian is a free way to sync and version control your vault. I have used a personal git server and GitHub to manage/sync my vaults for their entire lifetime.

I do not recommend the use of GitHub Desktop

GitHub repository setup

  1. If you do not have an account with GitHub, you can create one here.

  2. After you have created an account and logged in, you can create a new repo from the + sign in the top right.

    github-new-repo.png

  3. Choose a repo name, make it Public or Private as you see fit. Tick Add Readme

    github-repo-settings.png

  4. You should be left with a repo resembling this. If you are presented a "how to" that means you did not include the ReadMe. Delete the repo via the Settings and re-make it.

    github-bare-repo.png

Create a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT)

These GitHub docs are decent enough: Creating a personal access token - GitHub Docs

Git setup

  1. Install git for Windows, MacOS, or Linux.
  2. Open a PowerShell window or Terminal, this should open in the root of your user directory.
For the purpose of this guide, we will put our repo here, if you want to put it somewhere else cd there but we will not be covering it.

  1. To pull down the bare repository from GitHub run git clone <url of the repo>
    • Get the URL for the repo out of your browser.
You will be asked to log into GitHub, or for a password. If you are asked for a plain password use the Personal Access Token (PAT) you generated above.

  1. You can now open your File Explorer to find a directory named the same thing as your Repo. It will have a ReadMe file inside that you can remove.
The repo is located in the root of your User Profile. Such as C:\Users\User\Obsdidian_Repo or ~/Obsidian_Repo

Vault setup

  1. Add any files you want to into the repo. The root of your repository should be treated as the root of your vault.
  2. Once files are added open a new PowerShell and run the following:
    cd Obsidian_Repo
git add .
git commit -a -m 'initial commit'
git push

You should now be able to view your files online in your GitHub repo.

Obsidian git plugin setup

  1. From the plugins pane in Obsidian add the "Obsidian Git" plugin.

  2. Configure the various timers as you see fit to automatically sync and push your vault. My settings are below:

    git-backup0.png

    git-backup1.png

  3. From now on the auto-magical timers should keep your vault syncing to the cloud without issue!