Using Obsidian with OpenClaw as a second brain setup

A developer on r/openclaw shared their setup using OpenClaw with Obsidian as a second brain system for notes, tasks, and long-term context management.

Key implementation details

The setup keeps context live in Obsidian, with the OpenClaw agent reading and writing directly to the vault to avoid burning tokens on large context dumps.

• QMD implementation: The agent can search notes without loading everything, resulting in significant token reduction. The user reports token use dropped in the 80-90% range in their setup.
• On-demand skill loading: Skills are loaded only when needed for specific tasks, avoiding sending 40-50 skills with every interaction.
• Centralized knowledge base: Obsidian serves as "everything I know" that the agent can query, reducing reliance on in-chat memory alone.

The user notes that the combination of a local vault with QMD has been particularly effective, though they're still iterating on the setup.