Benjamin L. Stewart

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tagsobsidian
notes

5 min read

Here is a reusable Home PC tutorial that reproduces the office setup as closely as possible.

Home PC: Publish Obsidian → GitHub from inside Obsidian

The finished workflow will be:

Obsidian → Ctrl+Alt+P or ribbon button → publish-public.sh → 60 Public/Website → Quartz content → GitHub branch v5

1. Verify the Quartz/GitHub repository

Open Terminal:

cd "$HOME/Projects/PKM"
 
git branch --show-current
git remote -v
git status --short

You want the branch to be:

v5

and origin to point to:

https://github.com/bnleez1/PKM.git

Ideally, git status --short should show nothing before proceeding.

2. Confirm the Home PC Obsidian path

Run:

find /mnt /run/media/"$USER" \
  -type d \
  -path "*/Obsidian/60 Public/Website" \
  2>/dev/null

On your Home PC, your path has previously been:

/mnt/usb-SanDisk_Extreme_55AE_323432353642343032323032-0:0-part1/Obsidian/60 Public/Website

Still verify it before creating the script.

3. Create the local scripts directory

cd "$HOME/Projects/PKM"
mkdir -p scripts

4. Create sync-public.sh

If the path above is still correct, paste:

cat > scripts/sync-public.sh <<'EOF'
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
 
SOURCE="/mnt/usb-SanDisk_Extreme_55AE_323432353642343032323032-0:0-part1/Obsidian/60 Public/Website/"
DEST="$HOME/Projects/PKM/content/"
 
if [[ ! -d "$SOURCE" ]]; then
  echo "ERROR: Public Obsidian folder not found:"
  echo "$SOURCE"
  exit 1
fi
 
echo
echo "DRY RUN — review what would be copied or removed"
echo "Source:      $SOURCE"
echo "Destination: $DEST"
echo
 
rsync -avhn --delete "$SOURCE" "$DEST"
 
echo
read -r -p "Proceed with synchronization? [y/N] " answer
 
if [[ ! "$answer" =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then
  echo "Synchronization cancelled."
  exit 0
fi
 
echo
echo "Copying public Obsidian files into Quartz..."
rsync -avh --delete "$SOURCE" "$DEST"
 
echo
echo "Synchronization complete."
EOF

5. Create publish-public.sh

cat > scripts/publish-public.sh <<'EOF'
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
 
cd "$HOME/Projects/PKM"
 
echo "Downloading any changes from GitHub..."
git pull origin v5
 
echo
echo "Copying public Obsidian files into Quartz..."
printf 'y\n' | ./scripts/sync-public.sh
 
git add -A content
 
if git diff --cached --quiet -- content; then
  echo
  echo "No public changes to publish."
  exit 0
fi
 
git commit \
  -m "Publish public notes $(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M')" \
  -- content
 
echo
echo "Uploading to GitHub..."
git push origin v5
 
echo
echo "Publishing complete."
EOF

Make them executable:

chmod +x scripts/sync-public.sh
chmod +x scripts/publish-public.sh

6. Keep the machine-specific scripts out of Git

Because the external-drive path differs between your Home and Office PCs, keep the scripts local:

printf '\n# Machine-specific publishing scripts\n/scripts/\n' >> .git/info/exclude

Check:

git status --short

You should not see:

?? scripts/

7. Test synchronization

First:

./scripts/sync-public.sh

Check that the source and destination are correct.

Then test the entire publishing process:

cd "$HOME/Projects/PKM" && ./scripts/publish-public.sh

A normal result when nothing has changed is:

Synchronization complete.
 
No public changes to publish.

Do not continue with Obsidian until this works from Terminal.

8. Install the Obsidian plugins

In Obsidian:

Settings → Community plugins → Browse

Install and enable:

  • Shell commands

  • Commander

You do not need Obsidian Git for this publishing workflow.

9. Fix the Shell commands settings display if necessary

With Obsidian 1.13.x and Shell commands 0.23.0, we found that the settings content may appear blank.

If that happens, create this CSS snippet:

VAULT="/mnt/usb-SanDisk_Extreme_55AE_323432353642343032323032-0:0-part1/Obsidian"
 
mkdir -p "$VAULT/.obsidian/snippets"
 
cat > "$VAULT/.obsidian/snippets/shellcommands-1-13-fix.css" <<'EOF'
#SC-tab-main-shell-commands {
  display: block !important;
}
 
/* Shell Commands 0.23.0 / Obsidian 1.13.x modal-tab workaround */
.modal .SC-tab-content {
  display: block !important;
}
EOF

Then in Obsidian:

Settings → Appearance → CSS snippets

Enable:

shellcommands-1-13-fix

You should then see the New shell command control.

10. Allow Flatpak Obsidian to execute host commands

Because your Obsidian installation is Flatpak-based, completely close Obsidian and run:

flatpak override --user \
  --talk-name=org.freedesktop.Flatpak \
  md.obsidian.Obsidian

Reopen Obsidian.

This is necessary because rsync and the publishing script need to run on Nobara itself rather than inside the Flatpak sandbox.

11. Create the publishing command in Shell commands

Go to:

Settings → Shell commands → New shell command

Use this command:

flatpak-spawn --host bash -lc 'cd "$HOME/Projects/PKM" && ./scripts/publish-public.sh'

Do not use the simpler version:

cd "$HOME/Projects/PKM" && ./scripts/publish-public.sh

inside Flatpak Obsidian, because rsync may not be available in the sandbox.

Click the command’s gear ⚙️.

Under General, set the alias to:

Publish Website to GitHub

12. Make publishing quiet

The Git command may otherwise produce a little popup such as:

[0]: From https://github.com/...

[0] means success, but we don’t need to see it every time.

In the command’s Output settings, set normal output notifications to Ignore.

If there is a separate stdout/stderr setting, set both to:

Ignore

Then publishing becomes effectively silent.

13. Assign Ctrl + Alt + P

The easiest way is:

Settings → Hotkeys

Search:

Publish Website to GitHub

Assign:

Ctrl + Alt + P

If the UI gives you trouble, we can use the same Terminal method we used on the Office PC to edit .obsidian/hotkeys.json.

Also make sure KDE does not have an old global Ctrl+Alt+P shortcut that launches Konsole. We want this shortcut assigned inside Obsidian only.

14. Add the Commander ribbon button

Open:

Settings → Commander → Ribbon

Choose Add Command.

Search for:

Publish Website to GitHub

Select the Shell commands entry.

Choose an icon such as:

  • upload

  • cloud upload

  • arrow up

  • Git branch

The new icon should appear in Obsidian’s left ribbon.

15. Final Home PC setup

You will then have three ways to publish:

Keyboard

Ctrl + Alt + P

Ribbon

Click the Commander Publish icon.

Command Palette

Ctrl + P
→ Publish Website to GitHub

All three execute:

flatpak-spawn --host bash -lc 'cd "$HOME/Projects/PKM" && ./scripts/publish-public.sh'

which ultimately performs:

Pull latest GitHub v5
        ↓
Read Home PC 60 Public/Website
        ↓
rsync into ~/Projects/PKM/content
        ↓
Stage only content/
        ↓
Commit public-note changes
        ↓
Push v5
        ↓
GitHub Pages / Quartz rebuild

Most importantly, your private Obsidian material remains outside the publishing workflow. Only the contents of:

60 Public/Website

are copied into the Quartz website repository.

I would keep this tutorial as your canonical “New PC / Obsidian GitHub Publishing Setup” procedure, because the same process can be reused on either machine; normally the only machine-specific item is the external-drive SOURCE= path.

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