obsidian-copilot VS obsidian-releases

hadn't seen your repo yet [1] - adding it to my list right now.

Your blog post is really neat on top - thanks for sharing

https://github.com/eugeneyan/obsidian-copilot

Um... can someone explain what this actually does?

In the video the user chooses the 'Copilot: Draft' action, and wow, it generates code...

...but, the 'draft' action [1] calls `/get_chunks` and then runs 'queryLLM' [2] which then just invokes 'https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions' directly.

So, generating text this way is 100% not interesting or relevant.

What's interesting here is how it's building the prompt to send to the openai-api.

So... can anyone shed some light on what the actual code [3] in get_chunks() does, and why you would... hm... I guess, do a lookup and pass the results to the openai api, instead of just the raw text?

The repo says: "You write a section header and the copilot retrieves relevant notes & docs to draft that section for you.", and you can see in the linked post [4], this is basically what the OP is trying to implement here; you write 'I want X', and the plugin (a bit like copilot) does a lookup of related documents, crafts a meta-prompt and passes the prompt to the openai api.

...but, it doesn't seem to do that. It seems to ignore your actual prompt, lookup related documents by embedding similarity... and then... pass those documents in as the prompt?

I'm pretty confused as to why you would want that.

It basically requires that you write your prompt separately before hand, so you can invoke it magically with a one-line prompt later. Did I misunderstand how this works?

[1] - https://github.com/eugeneyan/obsidian-copilot/blob/bdabdc422...

[2] - https://github.com/eugeneyan/obsidian-copilot/blob/bdabdc422...

[3] - https://github.com/eugeneyan/obsidian-copilot/blob/main/src/...

[4] - https://eugeneyan.com/writing/llm-experiments/#shortcomings-...

The closest editor that follows our first principle is Obsidian editor:

The solution was already installed on both my computer and my phone: Obsidian.

> why does open source need to "win"

Open source does not need to win.

But your ability to be in control of your computer needs to be preserved. A proprietary fridge cannot control your diet, while a proprietary App Store can control what software you install on YOUR phone (unless you live in EU, hello DMA!). The tail wags the dog, so to speak. Proprietary software has also been shown to break user workflows or remove functions in an update while leaving users with no choice whatsoever.

One alternative to having open source win is to ensure software must come with a robust warranty and other assurances you expect from the things you buy. EU's CRA will make software vulnerabilities in WiFi routers covered by warranty, for example.

You can also ensure robust and interoperable data storage options. For example, https://obsidian.md/ stores all notes in Markdown, not holding the data hostage in case users will not like how future versions will work. GDPR actually has a provision for data portability (Art. 20), but it does not seem to have a requisite effect on the industry yet.

And until the above issues are solved, open source remains the best way to ensure that a software tail cannot wag your computer dog.

[2] https://obsidian.md/

So I've had my fair share of personal websites and blogs. I have built them on stacks ranging from the most basic HTML and CSS, to hosted frameworks like Wordpress and Laravel, to the more modern single page applications built in Vue and React. For a simple content blog I think you can't go wrong with a Static Site Generator though. These days I am almost exclusively writing everything in Obsidian. Which is great because its all in standard markdown format. This allows for a really neat and easy content publishing workflow.

Consider making an Obsidian[^1] plugin, or writing to Obsidian-compatible Markdown files :)

[^1]: https://obsidian.md/

Obsidian is a writing application created to allow for offline / private note taking in markdown format, in an interface that looks a lot like our regular programming IDE. It is very flexible, with a good collection of community plugins that you can use to customize Obsidian to your heart contents.

Obsidian support via our Obsidian Plugin