Obsidian Workflow and Repository Variables

Full setup of one-click content updates via Obsidian Git.

This option gives authors a native flow: edit in Obsidian, commit, push, auto-deploy.

Recommended architecture

Site repo: theme, templates, workflow, rules.
Content repo: markdown files only.
Obsidian vault points to content repository root.

Content repository setup

Repository variable:

NP_SITE_REPO=owner/repo (target site repository)

Repository secret:

NP_DEPLOY_TOKEN with permission to call repository_dispatch in NP_SITE_REPO

Content repository workflow sends content-updated event to site repository.

Site repository setup for content_repo mode

Repository variables:

CONTENT_SOURCE=content_repo
CONTENT_REPO=owner/repo (your content repository)
CONTENT_REF=main (optional)

Obsidian Git flow

Open content repository as vault.
Edit markdown.
Run "Commit-and-sync" in Obsidian Git.
Content repository workflow automatically triggers site deploy.

Pre-build Obsidian normalization

In CI, pre-build script normalizes two Obsidian-native patterns before index/build:

image embeds: !\[\[cover.webp\]\] -> standard markdown image links
hub values in frontmatter: wikilinks are converted to plain slug

For hub, both direct slug links and filename links are supported:

\[\[product\]\] -> product
\[\[product-hub\]\] -> product (via frontmatter slug in hub file)

This keeps native Obsidian flow and provides stable hub filtering in templates.

Token guidance

Public repo: fine-grained PAT with target repo access, usually repository contents read/write is enough.
Private repo: same, but target repository must be explicitly included in token access.

Use a dedicated token per project, not one shared token for all projects.