Productivity
obsidian-second-brain
Persistent memory for Claude Code and other CLI agents, stored as plain Markdown in your Obsidian vault
★ 4.7k starsMIT
View guide →LibreAI / Productivity / OB1
// productivity · NateBJones-Projects/OB1
OB1
OB1 is an open-source productivity project by NateBJones-Projects (NateBJones-Projects/OB1 on GitHub). It has 4,701 GitHub stars and 893 forks, is released under the NOASSERTION license, and was last updated on GitHub on 8 October 2026.
Open Brain (OB1): one database, one AI gateway, one capture channel — shared memory for every AI you use
★ 4.7k stars⑂ 893 forksNOASSERTIONupdated 2026-10
▦ visual — this project's README ships no embeddable screenshot,
so here's a placeholder. The guide below is complete regardless.
so here's a placeholder. The guide below is complete regardless.
// project facts
Project facts
- Repository
- NateBJones-Projects/OB1
- GitHub stars
- 4,701
- Forks
- 893
- License
- NOASSERTION
- Last updated on GitHub
- 8 October 2026
- Category
- Productivity
- Listing
- Full install guide
// how it works
How it works
- Understand the architecture
Read the overview: one database, one AI gateway, one chat channel, and an MCP server that any AI can plug into.
- Clone and follow the setup guide
Clone the repo and build the full system with the Setup Guide (or the AI-assisted setup with Cursor/Claude Code) — database, gateway, Slack capture, and MCP server.
- Connect your AI tools
Attach Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or Claude Code to the same brain via the remote MCP connection.
- Capture and extend
Start capturing thoughts through Slack, then build Extension 1 (Household Knowledge Base) and import old data with Recipes.
// features
Why people love it
One shared memory for all AIs
A single database with vector search that every connected AI reads and writes, instead of per-tool memory silos.
Slack capture channel
Capture thoughts where you already chat; companion prompts help build the capture habit and migrate existing memories.
MCP server access
Any MCP-capable client can connect, and a Shared MCP Server primitive lets you give others scoped access to parts of your brain.
Six guided Extensions
A learning path that builds a household knowledge base, maintenance tracker, family calendar, meal planner, professional CRM, and job-hunt pipeline.
Import Recipes
Community-reviewed recipes import ChatGPT, Perplexity, Obsidian, X/Twitter, Instagram, Google Takeout, Grok, and email history with parsing, deduplication, and embedding included.
Dashboards and self-hosting options
Community SvelteKit and Next.js dashboards point at your Supabase backend, and a Kubernetes recipe offers a fully self-hosted deployment with PostgreSQL + pgvector, no Supabase required.
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// run it
Run it yourself
- Clone the repository
Clone the project and enter its directory.
git clone https://github.com/NateBJones-Projects/OB1.git cd OB1 - Follow the setup guide
Build the full system — database, AI gateway, Slack capture, MCP server — using the repo's Setup Guide (about 45 minutes per the README).
# see the Setup Guide linked from the README for the exact steps - Connect an AI client
Use the Remote MCP Connection primitive in the repo docs to connect Claude Desktop, ChatGPT, Claude Code, or Cursor to your brain.
# see the 'Remote MCP Connection' primitive doc in the repo
// use cases
What you can build
- Give Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor one shared long-term memory instead of three silos
- Capture ideas and decisions in Slack and have every AI able to recall them
- Import years of ChatGPT exports and notes into a single searchable brain
- Build household, calendar, meal-planning, and CRM assistants on one personal database
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// faq
Questions, answered
Who maintains OB1?
Nate B. Jones created Open Brain; a maintainer team reviews and merges a large volume of community Extensions, Recipes, skills, and dashboards.
Is OB1 free?
The repository is open (license not asserted in its metadata). The reference setup runs on Supabase and an AI gateway, so you may pay for those services' tiers and your own model usage.
Does it need a paid API key?
You will need accounts/keys for the pieces you assemble — typically Supabase plus an LLM provider for the gateway and embeddings — as detailed in the Setup Guide.
How does it compare to a notes app like Obsidian or Notion?
Those are apps for humans; OB1 is infrastructure — a database with vector search and an open MCP protocol whose purpose is that every AI you use shares one persistent memory. (There is even a Recipe to import an Obsidian vault into it.)
How do I get started?
Clone the repo and follow the Setup Guide (or the AI-Assisted Setup), then connect your first AI client over MCP and pick Extension 1.
// keep exploring
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View guide →// alternatives
Alternatives in Productivity
The most-starred other Productivity projects in the LibreAI catalogue — the realistic shortlist if OB1 is not the right fit.
- worldmonitor★ 88.1k
Real-time global intelligence dashboard: AI news aggregation, geopolitics and infrastructure tracking
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Joplin — the privacy-focused note-taking app: Markdown notes and to-dos on every platform, offline-first, with end-to-end encrypted sync you control
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Open-source personal AI assistant & Agent Harness. Plans tasks, runs tools and skills, self-evolves with memory and knowledge. Multi-agent, multi-model, mult…
- Logseq★ 45.3k
Logseq — a privacy-first platform for knowledge management: an outliner over your local Markdown files, with a graph, journals and spaced repetition built in
// more in productivity
More in Productivity
Nearby Productivity projects in the catalogue, closest in stars to OB1 — keep exploring the shelf either side of it.
- obsidian-mind★ 5.0k
A self-organizing Obsidian vault that gives AI coding agents persistent memory across sessions.
- obsidian-second-brain★ 4.7k
Persistent memory for Claude Code and other CLI agents, stored as plain Markdown in your Obsidian vault
- open-science★ 5.5k
A local-first, model-agnostic AI research workbench for reproducible scientific work.
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Deta Surf — personal AI notebooks that organise files and webpages and generate notes from them.
- MineContext★ 5.5k
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- llm-for-zotero★ 3.2k
An open-source research agent system that lives inside your Zotero library.
Get OB1
Free and open — grab the source, star the repo, and start creating.