Disclaimer
Is this plugin open source? Yes
Is this plugin completely free? Yes
Is this plugin vibe-coded beyond the author’s ability to comprehend how it works? No
Community Directory: Scholar Quest
Since I started my PhD, I’ve always been interested in gamifying academic work, or more generally, knowledge work, to make it more engaging. That’s why I developed this plugin.
This plugin isn’t simply another productivity RPG. It’s different because the core loop is passive: Scholar Quest watches your vault and awards XP when you make progress on writing, reading, or hit a project milestone. After several months of personal use, I’ve finally decided to announce v1.5.0.
What it tracks
Three core loops:
-
Reading: Add a reading status (skimmed or read) to your paper notes using a frontmatter field. By default, this uses
tags, but you can configure it to any field (keywords,status, or whatever you prefer). Mark papers as skimmed or read with default indicators:
and 
(customizable in settings). XP is awarded automatically as you progress through each stage. Each paper awards XP once; re-tagging does not grant additional XP. I personally used Zotero Integration plugin to import references. -
Writing: It tracks net word count across any project file, defined by the project tag YAML field (configurable). Use it for manuscripts, grant applications, thesis chapters, talk scripts, peer review drafts, and more. Write 100 words above your previous peak to earn 20 XP. Write 500+ net new words in a single day to earn a one-time session bonus. Since I primarily use the Zettelkasten concept for my system, I also automatically track atomic note development. A new concept note tagged cards/atom earns 30 XP on creation and more each time you add words or wikilinks (max once per hour per file).
-
Project Milestones: Choose from 14 project types—manuscript, grant, thesis, conference, peer review, and more. Each includes predefined milestone templates that you can check off from the sidebar as you progress. XP scales with milestone weight. For example, publishing a paper earns more points than submitting an abstract to a conference.
For work outside the vault, a manual log lets you select from a searchable catalog of 52 activities across 10 discipline categories—wet lab, fieldwork, teaching, outreach, clinical research, editorial service, and more.
Career calibration
When you first open Obsidian after installing it, a wizard asks about your academic history across 19 fields in 6 categories: credentials (PhD, Masters, postdocs), publications (papers, books, edited volumes, software/datasets), grants and patents, recognition (talks, awards), and supervision and service (students, theses examined, peer reviews, editorial roles). It uses these to calculate a starting level. For example, a postdoc with 5 first-author papers and 2 grants starts around level 12, not level 1. Estimates are fine—you can recalculate anytime from the command palette, and previous values are pre-filled so you only need to update what has changed.
Tiers and the sidebar
There are 12 visual tiers, each with a pixel art avatar that evolves in the sidebar as you level up. The progression runs from a dormant egg through Wisp, Blaze, Drake, Wyrm, Dragon, and finally Nova at level 60. XP scales linearly through level 20, then plateaus at 6,000 XP per level.
The sidebar displays your XP progress bar, a recent activity feed, 36 pixel art achievement chips, and active projects with pending milestones. Unlocked achievements appear in full color; locked ones are dimmed.
Getting started
v1.5.0 is live on GitHub. Community catalog listing is pending Obsidian review; install via BRAT (add Zhao-Jun-Yong/scholar-quest) or download main.js and manifest.json from the latest release manually.
- Install and reload Obsidian
- Complete the career calibration wizard (or skip to start at level 1)
- Open the sidebar via the graduation cap icon
- Work normally
Works best if your paper notes are in a sources folder and atomic notes are tagged — but all paths, tag names, and the frontmatter field the plugin reads tags from are configurable in Settings → Scholar Quest. If you use a non-standard property name like keywords instead of tags, you can point the plugin to it directly.
On first launch, the plugin scans your existing vault and awards historical XP for notes that already match the tracked patterns — so if you have an established notes vault, you won’t start at level 1.