obsidian-remote-ssh

Development setup

4 min read

Development setup

How to get a working dev environment for the plugin and the daemon. Targets a contributor making their first PR; covers macOS, Linux, and Windows + WSL.

Toolchain

ToolMin versionWhy
Node.js20.x (per plugin/package.json engines.node)Plugin build (esbuild), unit tests (vitest 4 needs 20.19+), npm scripts
Go1.25.x (per server/go.mod + CI)Daemon binary build
Docker + docker composeany recentIntegration tests use a sandbox sshd container
makeanyserver/Makefile orchestrates the Go cross-builds
gh (GitHub CLI)recentPR management; not strictly required but heavily used in our flow

For Windows: install via WSL2 (Ubuntu 22.04 or newer) — the integration test sshd container assumes a Linux-ish environment.

First-time clone

git clone https://github.com/sotashimozono/obsidian-remote-ssh.git
cd obsidian-remote-ssh
 
# Plugin deps
cd plugin
npm ci
 
# Verify Go works + binary builds
cd ../server
make build
./bin/obsidian-remote-server --help

If make build succeeds and the help output renders, your toolchain is good.

Repo layout

obsidian-remote-ssh/
├── plugin/                      # Obsidian plugin (TypeScript)
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── transport/           # SSH + RPC client
│   │   ├── adapter/             # Obsidian adapter shim
│   │   ├── settings/            # UI for profiles
│   │   ├── ssh/                 # Host-key store, auth resolver
│   │   └── ui/                  # Status bar, modals, terminal pane
│   ├── tests/                   # vitest unit + integration suites
│   ├── e2e/                     # Playwright tests against real Obsidian
│   ├── scripts/                 # build-server.mjs, bump-version.mjs, etc.
│   └── package.json
├── server/                      # Daemon (Go)
│   ├── cmd/obsidian-remote-server/  # main package
│   ├── internal/
│   │   ├── proto/               # wire types (LSP-style framed JSON-RPC)
│   │   ├── rpc/                 # framing + dispatcher
│   │   ├── handlers/            # fs.* + auth + server.info
│   │   ├── auth/                # token gen + validation
│   │   └── watcher/             # inotify wrapper
│   └── Makefile
├── proto/                       # cross-language wire spec (README.md)
├── docs/                        # Quartz markdown content (this doc set)
├── docs-site/                   # Quartz framework
├── deploy/docker/               # turn-key sshd container
└── .github/workflows/           # CI / release / sync / docs deploys

The plugin and server are deliberately separate trees with their own toolchains. They communicate only over the JSON-RPC wire spec in proto/README.md.

Common workflows

Plugin: build + dev iterate

cd plugin
npm run dev                     # esbuild in watch mode → main.js

Open Obsidian, point a vault at <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-remote-ssh-dev (or symlink the build output there). Reload the plugin in Obsidian after each rebuild — there’s no auto-reload.

For the bundled daemon binary the plugin uploads on connect: run npm run build:server once. It builds the daemon for your local OS+arch and copies it into plugin/server-bin/.

Plugin: tests

npm test                        # unit tests, vitest, ~950 tests
npm run test:integration        # SSH integration tests, requires Docker
npm run test:e2e                # Playwright against real Obsidian (slowest)

Integration tests assume the test sshd container is up:

npm run sshd:start              # docker compose up the test sshd
npm run test:integration
npm run sshd:stop               # tear down

CI handles this orchestration automatically; locally it’s manual.

Plugin: type check + lint

node node_modules/typescript/bin/tsc --noEmit  # type check
npm run lint                                    # eslint

Both run on every PR; flag them locally before pushing.

Server: build + test

cd server
make build                      # native binary → bin/obsidian-remote-server
make cross                      # 4 binaries → dist/obsidian-remote-server-<os>-<arch>
make test                       # go test ./...

Run plugin against your dev daemon

By default the plugin uploads its bundled daemon (the one in plugin/server-bin/). To iterate on the daemon, build a fresh server/bin/obsidian-remote-server and cp it over plugin/server-bin/obsidian-remote-server-<os>-<arch>. Reconnect from the plugin — the auto-deploy uploads your fresh binary.

For tighter iteration, run the daemon directly under your test sshd container’s user:

docker compose -f deploy/docker/docker-compose.yml exec -u obsidian sshd \
  /workspace/server/bin/obsidian-remote-server \
  --vault-root=/home/obsidian/vault \
  --socket=/home/obsidian/.obsidian-remote/server.sock \
  --token-file=/home/obsidian/.obsidian-remote/token \
  --verbose

The plugin’s reuse probe will then attach to your manually-started daemon on connect (skipping the bundled-binary upload).

Branching + commit conventions

  • Feature branches: feat/<short-name> → PR into next. See CONTRIBUTING.md Branching model.
  • Stable promotions: release/X.Y.Z → PR into main. See Release flow.
  • Commit messages: Conventional Commits (type(scope): subject). The full list of allowed types is in commitlint.config.mjs. CI rejects PRs whose commits don’t conform (sync + promotion PRs are exempted at the workflow level).

Editor setup hints

  • VSCode: install ESLint + TypeScript extensions; the tsconfig.json in plugin/ should be auto-detected.
  • GoLand / VSCode Go: open server/ as its own root (it has its own go.mod).
  • Windows + WSL: clone inside WSL filesystem (not /mnt/c/...), otherwise file-watching for npm run dev is unreliable.

See also

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