Seeking Collaboration for Scrivener-Obsidian Integration Plugin

Plugins ideas
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve been using Scrivener for my fiction project, which has been fantastic for writing, but not so much for organising notes. That’s when I discovered Obsidian, and ever since, it has been my go-to for managing project notes. It’s perfect for structuring research and ideas in a non-linear way.

However, there’s one major issue: I wish there was better integration between Scrivener and Obsidian.

Scrivener does have an “External Folder Sync” feature, and I used it for a while, but it has some significant limitations:

• No support for folder structure: All synced files are placed in the root directory.

• Clunky setup: Configuring what gets synchronised feels cumbersome.

• Filename changes: Scrivener appends an integer to filenames, which is problematic for consistent organisation in Obsidian.

• Ignores Markdown metadata: Scrivener treats the whole file as plain text, disregarding things like YAML front matter in Obsidian.

What I Want to Achieve

I spent time researching Scrivener’s file structure and created a basic CLI tool in C# that could sync an Obsidian note to Scrivener. It worked well enough as a proof of concept, but I started to outline the broader features I’d need for a more comprehensive tool:

• Two-way sync between Scrivener and Obsidian.

• Support for folder structure in Obsidian: Allowing sub-folders in Obsidian to map to Scrivener.

• Synchronise Scrivener metadata with Obsidian: Keeping track of things like modified dates or UUIDs for proper syncing, either wish Obsidian YAML front matter and/or and plugin’s data.json.

• Better handling of text imports: In Scrivener, a folder is a loose concept. Any file can be the parent of another file. I came up with an approach that would reflect this hierarchy in Obsidian—while maintaining consistency with both apps’ formats.

Why I’m Looking for Help (and to Help)

Here’s the catch: I’ve never coded JavaScript or TypeScript seriously (I come from a .NET background), and after a couple of weeks working on this, it’s clear that developing an Obsidian plugin would take me much longer than it would take an experienced developer.

I’d probably default to building a simpler tool just for my own use, but that would be a shame since it wouldn’t benefit anyone else. That’s why I’d much rather collaborate with someone who knows their way around the Obsidian plugin API, JavaScript, and TypeScript. I’m happy to help with specs, testing, and some coding, but I’d prefer to focus on my actual writing project while working with someone who can bring this plugin to life for the community.

If anyone in the community is interested in working together on a Scrivener-Obsidian sync plugin, I’d love to help build something that would benefit not only myself but also other writers using both tools.

4 Likes
2

Unfortunately I can’t help, but this is something I would really love to see!

3

I just wanted to say I fully support this as well and would welcome this plugin very much.

I currently am limping along with scrivener sync feature to integrate with Obsidian and I agree with the limitations.

I would recommend having ChatGPT help you with coding. It is pretty incredible at that.

4

I looked into doing exactly this, same problems same specs. However I have near zero coding skills, and was treating it as a test for vibe coding.

I got Gemini 2.5 pro to do deep research on the required specs and approach.

I Started with the Plugin Github and got Jules to work on it.

I put things on pause waiting for Gemini 3 (I don’t want to pay for the Claude Opus 4.1 API)

I have a feeling this project will be reachable with Gemini 3, if you feed it the JSON structure for the scrivx file and the RTF files in the Scrivener bundle, since the Obsidian plugin format is already laid out on Github.

Perhaps when Gemini 3 comes out we could work on this together, since you actually have some real coding and debugging skills?

I am also looking into VS Code with Gemini CLI as well as Qwen3 Coder / GPT5 via Kilocode as a way to do IDE, so this could be combined learning on these topics.

5

I am not able to help with something like this, but I am nosy. I am curious to hear more what you envision it will look like inside Scrivener and inside Obsidian. Will you write your book in Scrivener and have the reference notes synced across? Will you also be editing your book in Obsidian or just the notes? What functionality will syncing files between the two programs give you that having writing in Scrivener and Notes in Obsidian will not (ie. you can cmd-tab between programs or have them side by side with writing open in one and notes open in the other.)

I am not criticizing the idea in any way; I just like to take ideas from everywhere and am interested in hearing what you are envisioning.

6

Ah, this would be such a godsend! I don’t have any coding knowledge, but this is exactly what I’m looking for to make the perfect set up and I would love to alpha/beta test such a plugin.

I used the sync feature for a while but gave up and transferred everything to Obsidian for now. Ideally, I want to be able to write in both softwares interchangeably and not have Scrivener mess up the file names, so the order of files works in both environments and is compatible with Longform scene order. While I’m sure there will be trade offs (such as Obsidian not being able to see a file’s comments from Scrivener or Scrivener not rendering markdown the way Obsidian does), but if a plugin can make the programs preserve folder structure and file order between them, that would already make such a difference!

I just wanted to express interest in this project - I’m sure many writers would welcome it. <3