Obsidian 2 Jekyll

This is a simple python script that converts Obsidian notes to a format that is compatible with Jekyll themes that support wikilinks and backlinking like Jekyll Garden or Digital Garden Jekyll Template. It adds the filename to the frontmatter as a title and lets you set the visibility of your notes on a folder or note-by-note basis.

Prerequisites

• Python3 installation.

Usage Instructions

Converting

To convert your vault into theme-compatible markdown, run

python3 [OBSIDIAN_VAULT_DIR] [OUTPUT_DIR]

Controlling the Visibility of your Notes

Notes are either public or private, where the script does not copy over notes that are defined as private.

• To explicitly set a note to public or private, include public: yes or public: no in the yaml frontmatter.
• If a note does not define its own visibility, it inherits the visibility of the folder it resides in. Folders can be made public or private by placing a .public or a .private file in the directory.
• If the directory does not define its own visibility, it inherits the visibility of its parent directory.
• If the parent directory also does not do not define or inherit a visibility, the visbility defaults to private.

Limitations

• (TODO) & in the filename breaks links
• (TODO) obsidian aliases do not work atm
• duplicate filenames - when there are two notes with the same name, only one will be copied to the destination directory
• only works for jenkyll themes that support wikilinks - would need conversion to standard markdown links

Duct Tape Obsidian Publish

This script is part of my selfmade Obsidian publish setup, which is roughly outlined below. It uses the Jekyll Garden theme and Github Pages to publish the notes.

The setup consists of 3 separate repositories:

• obsidian-to-jekyll (this one)
• jekyll-theme (the repository of the Jekyll theme connected to Github Pages)
• obsidian-vault (the Bbsidian vault connecten via Obsidian Git sync)

ducttape-obsidian-publish
├── obsidian-to-jekyll
├── jekyll-directory
└── obsidian-vault

The following Github workflow is placed in the obsidian-vault repository and opdates the Jekyll page whenever there is a change to the vault. Add ssh credentials and adjust the filepaths if you intend to use the workflow in your own setup.

name: Publish Notes to Jekyll
on: 
  push:
      branches:
        - master
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  deploy-application:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - run: |
        eval $(ssh-agent -s)
        mkdir -p ~/.ssh
        chmod 700 ~/.ssh
        echo "${{ secrets.DEPLOYMENT_SERVER_KEY }}" | tr -d '\r' | ssh-add -
        echo -e "Host *\n\tStrictHostKeyChecking no\n\n" > ~/.ssh/config
        ssh ${{ secrets.DEPLOYMENT_SERVER_USER }}@${{ secrets.DEPLOYMENT_SERVER_IP }} "cd /YOURPATH/ducttape-obsidian-publish/obsidian-vault && git pull"
        ssh ${{ secrets.DEPLOYMENT_SERVER_USER }}@${{ secrets.DEPLOYMENT_SERVER_IP }} "cd /YOURPATH/ducttape-obsidian-publish/obsidian-to-jekyll && python3 ./convert.py ../obsidian-vault ../jekyll-directory/NOTE_DIRECTORY"
        ssh ${{ secrets.DEPLOYMENT_SERVER_USER }}@${{ secrets.DEPLOYMENT_SERVER_IP }} 'cd /YOURPATH/ducttape-obsidian-publish/jekyll-directory && git pull && git add . && git commit -m "Update Digital Garden" && git push'

Authors

• Adrian Steffan adriansteffan website