Flavor Grenade LSP — Obsidian Markdown Support

Language intelligence for Obsidian Flavored Markdown in Visual Studio Code. Powered by the flavor-grenade-lsp language server.

OFMarkdown In VS Code

Vault notes are promoted to OFMarkdown so Obsidian-specific links, embeds, tags, and block anchors get language-server support without taking over generic Markdown files.

The status bar shows whether Flavor Grenade is starting, indexing, ready, disabled, crashed, or misconfigured. Status actions expose rebuild, output, diagnostic copy, troubleshooting, and vault reveal commands when they apply.

Wiki-link completion offers vault notes as soon as you type [[, using the same indexed document graph that powers definitions, references, and rename.

Heading and block-anchor completions make [[note#heading]] and [[note#^block]] links discoverable without memorizing target structure.

Reference code lens puts incoming-link counts above headings and block anchors so frequently referenced knowledge surfaces are easy to spot.

Embed diagnostics identify missing targets, while hover previews give quick context for resolved note and attachment embeds.

Tag completion and references use the vault-wide tag index, including nested Obsidian tag paths.

Callout completion offers common Obsidian callout types inside quote blocks.

Features

• Completions — [[ triggers wiki-link completions across the vault; # triggers tag completions; heading and block-anchor completions inside links
• Diagnostics — Broken wiki-links (BrokenLink), ambiguous links (AmbiguousLink), broken embeds (BrokenEmbed), malformed frontmatter (MalformedFrontmatter)
• Go to Definition — Navigate from [[wiki-link]] to the target document, heading, or block anchor
• Rename — Rename a document or heading and update all incoming references across the vault
• Code Actions — Quick-fix to create a missing linked document; extract selection to new note
• Code Lens — Inline reference counts on headings and documents
• Semantic Tokens — Syntax highlighting for wiki-links, tags, embeds, and block references
• OFMarkdown language mode — Obsidian vault notes are recognized as OFMarkdown without taking over generic Markdown files

OFMarkdown Editor Affordances

The extension contributes snippets only for the OFMarkdown language mode:

OFMarkdown mode also adds editor pairs for wiki-links, embeds, and Obsidian comments, plus word selection tuned for tags and block anchors. Generic Markdown keeps VS Code's normal Markdown behavior.

Payload-free Flavor Grenade commands have OFMarkdown-scoped keybindings:

Configuration

Getting Started

1. Install Flavor Grenade from the VS Code Marketplace.
2. Open an Obsidian vault folder in VS Code.
3. Open any vault .md file — the language server starts automatically and VS Code switches the language picker to OFMarkdown.

That's it. Wiki-link completions, diagnostics, go-to-definition, and all other features activate as soon as the server finishes indexing your vault. The status bar shows indexing progress.

Generic Markdown files outside detected vaults stay in VS Code's normal Markdown mode. If you manually choose another language mode for a document, Flavor Grenade leaves that choice alone.

Language-specific VS Code settings can target OFMarkdown:

{
  "[ofmarkdown]": {
    "editor.wordWrap": "on"
  }
}

Activation Behavior

Flavor Grenade starts automatically when VS Code opens a workspace that looks like an Obsidian or Flavor Grenade vault:

• A workspace containing .obsidian/ activates the extension and starts vault membership detection.
• A workspace containing .flavor-grenade.toml also activates the extension and starts vault membership detection.
• Opening Markdown in a generic workspace with neither marker keeps Flavor Grenade idle. VS Code continues to treat those files as normal Markdown, and the extension does not start vault indexing just because a README or other ordinary .md file is open.
• Opening a supported markdown or ofmarkdown file can wake the extension, but startup still checks for a positive vault signal before doing vault work.
• Running an explicit command, such as Flavor Grenade: Restart Server, Flavor Grenade: Rebuild Index, or Flavor Grenade: Show Output, can wake the extension. Command wake does not promise that a vault exists or that indexing will find content; the same startup checks still run before the command path starts server work.

This behavior comes from Phase E7 activation precision and the extension parity requirements for Extension.Activation.VaultPrecision and Extension.Activation.MarkerEvents.

Commands

Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P) and type "Flavor Grenade":

• Flavor Grenade: Restart Server — Stop and restart the language server
• Flavor Grenade: Rebuild Index — Re-scan the vault and rebuild the document index
• Flavor Grenade: Show Output — Open the language server output channel for troubleshooting

Flavor Grenade also registers bridge commands used by the language server and extension UI:

• flavorGrenade.showReferences
• flavorGrenade.followLink
• flavorGrenade.openEmbedTarget
• flavorGrenade.showBacklinks
• flavorGrenade.showOutlinks
• flavorGrenade.revealVaultRoot
• flavorGrenade.copyDiagnosticInfo

Bridge payloads are plain JSON: file URI strings, zero-based positions, ranges, locations, and diagnostic text. Invalid payloads fail safely before VS Code APIs are called, with no uncaught extension-host exception. Maintainer details live in extension/docs/features/command-bridge-contracts.md.

Development Smoke Test

1. From the repository root, run bun install.
2. From extension/, run npm ci.
3. Open extension/ in VS Code.
4. Start the Run Extension launch configuration.
5. Edit code under the repository root src/; the server TypeScript watch task rebuilds ../dist/main.js.
6. Run Flavor Grenade: Restart Server in the Extension Host window.
7. Open a note inside a folder containing .obsidian/; confirm the language picker becomes OFMarkdown.
8. Open a non-vault Markdown file; confirm the language picker remains Markdown.
9. Confirm changed LSP behavior is visible without rebuilding the bundled server binary.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.82.0 or later
• An Obsidian vault or a folder configured with .flavor-grenade.toml

Links

• Source code
• Issue tracker
• Changelog

License

MIT