AI Accessible Comments

[TanujW]

Hey there!

I've just started using your plugin, and so far it's far ahead of the other plug-ins in terms of UI/UX for a human. However, it seems like my AI agents couldn't see the comments, so I made a small skill to parse the data.json file.

However, it seems like while reading is not an issue, direct edits to data.json are overwritten with in-memory state of the application.

I managed to patch (with the help of Codex) the local bundled main.js so external edits to data.json are picked up while Obsidian is running. The issue was that direct writes to the plugin data file could update disk state without updating SideNote’s in-memory comments array, so comments created by external tools were invisible until restart.

The patch adds a 2-second polling refresh, normalized fingerprinting of plugin data, and save/reload guards. When changes to the data.json are detected, it reloads plugin data, updates the CommentManager, re-renders SideNote views, and refreshes editor decorations.

Plugin-originated saves update the fingerprint and are guarded so SideNote does not react to its own writes to the file.

I'm happy to create a pull-request, but not sure if this is the best method to accomplish what I wanted.

Thank you for your continued development of the plugin!

[mofukuru]

Really interesting use case! You're right that external writes to data.json get overwritten by the in-memory state. I'd love to see the PR, please go ahead and open it. I'll mainly be looking at polling interval/configurability, mobile battery impact, and whether this should be opt-in via a setting, but nothing here is a blocker.

One alternative: SideNote already has an "Optional Markdown Storage" mode that saves comments as per-note .md files, but it's currently write-only. Making it read edits back in would piggyback on Obsidian's native file-watching instead of polling, and give external tools a more stable format to write to than the internal data.json. Not a requirement for the PR, just food for thought!

Thanks for the writeup and the patch work already done!

[80927187]

I’m also really looking forward to this feature. If AI tools could write comments directly, I could use them to review my notes and annotate places where my original understanding or wording may be incorrect.

Since most of my annotations are already generated with the help of AI, this would be extremely useful for my workflow.

[TanujW]

I've created the PR. However, I'm personally using a skill to ensure it works well.

obsidian-side-note.zip

[TanujW]

One alternative: SideNote already has an "Optional Markdown Storage" mode that saves comments as per-note .md files, but it's currently write-only. Making it read edits back in would piggyback on Obsidian's native file-watching instead of polling, and give external tools a more stable format to write to than the internal data.json. Not a requirement for the PR, just food for thought!

I could not find this setting. Is this equivalent to the "Create Markdown Backup" button?

[mofukuru]

Yes, that's the same feature, sorry for the confusing name. In the UI it's actually two things under Settings → Side Note: "Markdown comments folder" (the folder path) + the "Create Markdown Backup" button. It's currently a one-off manual export, not an automatic or two-way sync, so what I was describing would be new work: making it export automatically and read edits back in. Just an idea for later, not something needed for your PR.