Installation

obsidian-tc ships in several forms. All of them run the same server; pick whichever fits your environment.

Method	macOS	Windows	Linux	Notes
npm (Node 24+)	x64, arm64	x64, arm64	x64, arm64	Universal; the recommended default.
Standalone binary	x64, arm64	x64	x64, arm64	No runtime needed. On Windows-arm64, use npm.
Docker (GHCR)	via a Linux VM	via a Linux VM	amd64, arm64	Container / server deployments.
One-click .mcpb	yes	yes	yes	For MCPB-capable hosts; runs under Node 24+, self-contained (built-in node:sqlite, no native dependency).

npm (Node 24+)

npm install -g obsidian-tc
obsidian-tc --version

This installs the obsidian-tc binary backed by the published obsidian-tc package and its @the-40-thieves/obsidian-tc-{shared,native} companions. The native module ships prebuilds for eight targets — linux-x64-gnu, linux-arm64-gnu, linux-x64-musl, linux-arm64-musl (Alpine), darwin-x64, darwin-arm64, win32-x64-msvc, and win32-arm64-msvc; on any other platform it transparently falls back to a pure-JS implementation.

Standalone binary

Each release attaches self-contained executables (built with bun build --compile, bytecode + minified) that bundle the runtime, so no Node or Bun is required on the host. Targets: macOS x64 + arm64, Windows x64, and Linux x64 + arm64. Download the asset for your platform from the GitHub release and run it directly. (Windows on arm64 is not a bun --compile target; use the npm install there.)

Docker

docker run --rm -v "$HOME/vaults:/vaults" \
  -v "$HOME/.config/obsidian-tc:/config" \
  ghcr.io/the-40-thieves/obsidian-tc:1.10.0 /config/config.json

The image is an oven/bun:1-slim build (Debian, glibc): the native prebuilds are gnu, so a glibc base keeps them loadable instead of forcing the pure-JS fallback.

One-click bundle (.mcpb)

For MCPB-capable MCP hosts, each release attaches a one-click obsidian-tc.mcpb bundle. It runs the server under the host’s Node (24+) and is fully self-contained: no node_modules and no native build are required, because it uses Node’s built-in node:sqlite when better-sqlite3 is absent (vector search then uses the brute-force fallback). Install it through your host’s MCP-bundle installer.

Companion plugin

Tools that bridge into a live Obsidian instance (Dataview, Templater, OCR, command execution) require the companion plugin, which exposes the vault’s Local REST API. Install it from the release’s plugin zip into .obsidian/plugins/. The server runs without it — those bridge tools simply degrade to plugin_missing.

Next: First Run.