Run a bounded, source-grounded research loop, draft a cited dossier, and optionally propose a separately reviewed canonical vault merge. Use when the user wants autonomous or deep research that may access the public web. Triggers: /autoresearch, autoresearch, research this topic, deep dive into, investigate, find everything about, research and file, go research, build a wiki on.
canvas
canvas is an open-source productivity skill for Claude Code and compatible agents, published by AgriciDaniel. Its author describes it as: “Create, inspect, and update Obsidian JSON Canvas boards with text, file, link, group, and edge nodes. Use for canvas status, canvas lists, visual maps, zones, spatial layouts, adding vault notes or media to a .canvas…”. The project has 11k stars on GitHub and is available under the MIT license. Add it to your setup with `/plugin marketplace add AgriciDaniel/claude-obsidian`.
What canvas does
Treat a canvas as a vault-scoped JSON Canvas document. Keep reads read-only and route every requested mutation through one recoverable transaction.
Installation
Add canvas to your agent with:
/plugin marketplace add AgriciDaniel/claude-obsidianAlways review a skill's source before installing it. This command comes from the skill's public repository; the linked repo is the source of truth for exact setup steps.
What's inside
The SKILL.md for canvas is organised into these sections:
- Choose the syntax source
- Scope
- Read-only operations
- Draft a mutation
- Preview and apply
When to use it
Reach for canvas when you want productivity help from your agent without writing the same instructions every session. Load the skill and the agent picks it up automatically for relevant tasks.
Strengths
- Clear MIT license — safe to read and adapt
- Ships in AgriciDaniel/claude-obsidian, an established project with 10,998 GitHub stars
- Actively maintained (recent commits)
Topics
Frequently asked questions
- What does canvas do?
- Create, inspect, and update Obsidian JSON Canvas boards with text, file, link, group, and edge nodes. Use for canvas status, canvas lists, visual maps, zones, spatial layouts, adding vault notes or media to a .canvas file, and requests such as create canvas, add to canvas, or put this on the canvas.
- How do I install canvas?
- Run /plugin marketplace add AgriciDaniel/claude-obsidian in your agent, then reload your skills. Review the source at https://github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-obsidian before installing.
- Is canvas free to use?
- Yes. canvas is free and open source under the MIT license, so you can read, run, and adapt it within that license's terms.
- Where does canvas come from?
- canvas ships inside AgriciDaniel/claude-obsidian, a repository that contains 17 catalogued skills in total. The repository's 10,998 GitHub stars apply to that whole collection, not to this skill on its own.
Related skills
More Productivity →Save a user-selected answer, decision, insight, or session summary into an Obsidian vault as one reviewed transaction. Use only when the user explicitly asks to preserve specific conversation content, not when they supply a file or URL to ingest. Triggers: /save, save this, save that answer, file this conversation, save this analysis, keep this insight, preserve this chat result.
Ingest supplied source material into an Obsidian vault with provenance and claim tracking: pasted text, files staged in the selected vault's inbox or .raw archive, or explicitly approved URLs. Use for a single source or bounded batch, not for saving an assistant answer. Triggers: ingest, ingest this file, ingest this URL, process this source, read and file this source, batch ingest, ingest these sources.
Read or configure the vault filing methodology and suggest destinations for planned knowledge creation under Generic, LYT, PARA, or Zettelkasten. Use for wiki mode, methodology mode, what is my vault mode, set vault mode, switch to PARA, use LYT, Zettelkasten setup, change mode, configure mode, or methodology routing. This skill does not save content or migrate notes.
Build and query a vault-local contextual BM25 retrieval index with optional multilingual Nomic cosine reranking; use for retrieve, hybrid retrieval, BM25, rerank, contextual retrieval, chunk search, vault search, semantic search, find relevant passages, or retrieval diagnostics. Derived caches stay under .vault-meta, remote egress requires explicit consent, and unavailable reranking falls back deterministically.