GNO vs Obsidian Search

A comparison of GNO with Obsidian’s built-in search.

Key insight: GNO and Obsidian can work together. Both offer note editing, but Obsidian excels at visual linking and graph exploration while GNO adds AI-powered search and external CLI/MCP access.

Quick Summary

Aspect GNO Obsidian Search
Purpose Search & AI access Note-taking app
Unique strength MCP/Skills, CLI, graph+similarity edges Visual editing, plugins
Works with Any folder Obsidian vaults only

Feature Comparison

Feature GNO Obsidian Search
Semantic Search ✓ Vector + rerank Plugin-dependent
File Formats MD, PDF, DOCX, etc. Markdown only
AI Integration MCP, Skills, RAG Plugin-dependent
External Access CLI, MCP server Obsidian app only
Works With Any folder structure Obsidian vaults
Graph View ✓ With similarity edges ✓ Links only
Backlinks ✓ CLI + Web UI ✓
Similar Notes ✓ Vector similarity Plugin-dependent
Graph + Similarity ✓ Visual similarity clusters ✗
Note Editing ✓ gno serve ✓
Plugins MCP ecosystem Obsidian plugins
REST API ✓ gno serve ✗
Web UI ✓ gno serve ✓ (Obsidian app)

Complementary Workflow

GNO works with Obsidian, not instead of it:

# 1. Take notes in Obsidian (your vault at ~/Documents/Obsidian)

# 2. Index your vault with GNO
gno init ~/Documents/Obsidian --name vault
gno index

# 3. Search via CLI
gno query "what were my notes about project planning"

# 4. Get AI answers from your notes
gno ask "summarize my meeting notes from last week" --answer

# 5. Let Claude search your vault
gno mcp install --target claude
# Now Claude can search your Obsidian notes

When to Use GNO (with Obsidian)

CLI search: Quick searches without opening Obsidian.

# Search from terminal
gno query "authentication best practices"

AI agent access: Let Claude, Cursor, or other AI tools search your notes.

# Install MCP for your tool
gno mcp install --target cursor

# Now your AI assistant can search your Obsidian vault

RAG answers: Get AI-generated answers with citations from your notes.

gno ask "what is our team's deployment process" --answer

Multi-format search: Search PDFs and docs alongside your markdown notes.

# Index everything in your vault, including attachments
gno init ~/Documents/Obsidian --name vault
gno index
gno query "contract terms"  # finds in PDFs too

Automation: Script searches in your workflows.

# Find related notes programmatically
gno query "project alpha" --format json | jq '.results[].path'

Visual exploration: Graph view with interactive features, Canvas.

Note editing: Rich note-taking with full plugin ecosystem.

Obsidian plugins: Plugin-specific features (Dataview, Canvas, Excalidraw, etc.).

Quick vault navigation: Opening notes by name, quick switcher.

Integration Setup

Index Your Obsidian Vault

# Install GNO
bun install -g @gmickel/gno

# Initialize with your vault
gno init ~/Documents/Obsidian --name vault

# Index all notes
gno index

Enable AI Access

# For Claude Desktop
gno mcp install --target claude

# For Cursor
gno mcp install --target cursor

# For Claude Code
gno mcp install --target claude-code

Search Examples

# Semantic search
gno query "ideas for improving user onboarding"

# Find specific topics
gno query "meeting notes about Q4 planning"

# Get AI answers
gno ask "what were the action items from the team sync" --answer

Best of Both Worlds

Task Use
Take notes Both
Edit notes Both
Visual graph exploration Both
Backlinks and outlinks Both
Similar notes discovery Both
Quick search from terminal GNO
AI agent access to notes GNO
RAG answers GNO
Search PDFs in vault GNO
Script/automate search GNO
Obsidian plugins Obsidian
Canvas/Excalidraw Obsidian

GNO extends Obsidian’s capabilities rather than replacing it. Your Obsidian vault becomes searchable from anywhere (terminal, AI assistants, scripts) while Obsidian remains your note-taking home.

Both now support graph views, backlinks, and outgoing links—but GNO adds CLI access (gno links, gno backlinks, gno similar, gno graph) and REST API endpoints for programmatic use.