GTD Brain for Obsidian: the Obsidian GTD plugin
Run Getting Things Done in your own Obsidian vault and keep it in sync with GTD Brain. The plugin lays out the classic GTD structure — Inbox, Next Actions grouped by context, Projects, Waiting For, Someday/Maybe — as plain Markdown notes, one note per card, plus a Weekly Review checklist. Edit a note, move it to another list folder, or create a new one, and the change lands on your GTD Brain board; capture from your phone or ChatGPT, and the note appears in your vault.
It is an open-source community plugin, listed in Obsidian's plugin directory. Sign in with the same email code you use everywhere else — no API key, no password — and the vault becomes a GTD Brain account (or joins the one you already have). The board it syncs with is the whole of GTD Brain: the web app, the iPhone and Android apps, and ChatGPT, Claude and the other assistants you connect. Sending your changes to the board needs a GTD Brain membership, and the yearly plan starts with a free month.
What you’ll need
- Obsidian 1.6.6 or newer on desktop or mobile.
- An email address — signing in with a new one creates your GTD Brain account.
Where to get it
Free to install from community.obsidian.md. Open source: github.com/minosin/gtdbrain-obsidian.
Step-by-step setup
Install the plugin
In Obsidian open Settings → Community plugins, turn off Restricted mode if it is on, click Browse, search for “GTD Brain”, then Install and Enable it. Or open the plugin's page in the Obsidian directory and press Add to Obsidian, which opens the same install screen in the app.
Sign in with your email code
Run the command “GTD Brain: Sign in” (or open the plugin's settings and click Sign in). Enter your email, type the code we send you, and you are connected. New email, new account — nothing to set up on the web first.
Create the GTD vault structure
Run “GTD Brain: Set up GTD folders”. The plugin creates the GTD Brain folder with Inbox, Next Actions, Projects, Waiting For and Someday Maybe, the list overview notes, and a Weekly Review checklist. If you already had a board, every card arrives as a note in the right folder.
Work in Markdown, sync in the background
Type a new note in Inbox to capture, drag a note into Next Actions to clarify it (set its @context in the frontmatter), or into Waiting For with who you delegated it to. The plugin syncs on a timer and on “GTD Brain: Sync now”; every change is mirrored to the web, iOS, Android, and your AI assistants.
What you can do once installed
The vault is plain Markdown, so everything else in Obsidian works on it — Dataview, Bases, backlinks, daily notes. Things people do with it:
- Capture on the phone, clarify at the desk: inbox notes from the mobile app show up in the vault, ready to be moved into a list.
- Link an action to its project by setting project: [[Project name]] in the note's frontmatter.
- Keep the Waiting For list honest: the who and since fields render as a table in the Waiting For overview note.
- Run the Weekly Review checklist note top to bottom every Friday — it links to each list.
- Query the notes with Dataview or Bases: every card note carries list, context, kind, who and since as frontmatter.
Every capture lands on the same board as the web, iOS, and Android apps — instantly. And cards can be archived but never deleted, so nothing is ever lost to a stray keystroke.
One board: web, iPhone, Android, ChatGPT and Claude
GTD Brain is one board, and every surface reads and writes the same cards: the web app, the iPhone app, the Android app, and the assistants you connect over MCP — ChatGPT, Claude and the rest on the connect page. One account and one subscription cover all of them; the AI clarifying and the guided weekly review are described on GTD with AI.
Troubleshooting
I can't find the plugin in Community plugins.
The in-app Browse list can lag the directory by up to a day after a release: open the plugin's directory page and press Add to Obsidian instead. On a vault that can't reach the directory at all, install it from the GitHub release: copy main.js, manifest.json and styles.css into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/gtd-brain/ and reload Obsidian.
A note I edited didn't change on the board.
Sync runs on the interval in the plugin settings and on “GTD Brain: Sync now”. Only the filename (the card title), the note body (the card notes) and the frontmatter fields context, project, who and since sync — other frontmatter is yours and stays local.
I deleted a note but the card is still on the board.
Deleting a note archives its card on the next sync; the card is not deleted — nothing ever is in GTD Brain. To bring it back, unarchive it on the web app and it returns to the vault.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a GTD plugin for Obsidian?
Yes. GTD Brain is a community plugin in Obsidian's plugin directory (search “GTD Brain” under Community plugins, or press Add to Obsidian on its directory page). It creates a GTD Brain folder with Inbox, Next Actions, Projects, Waiting For and Someday Maybe as Markdown notes, plus a Weekly Review checklist, and syncs them with a board on the web, your phone and your AI assistants.
Do I need a GTD Brain membership?
To sync your changes, yes. Without one, your board still comes into the vault and stays readable, but new notes and edits stay in the vault until your membership starts, and the next sync then sends them. It is the same membership that covers the web, iPhone and Android apps, and the yearly plan starts with a free month.
Can I do GTD in Obsidian with the Tasks plugin instead?
Yes, and many people do: checkbox tasks tagged with a context, gathered by tasks queries into Next Actions and Waiting For views. It stays entirely inside the vault, which is also its limit — no inbox on your phone without Obsidian on it, nothing an assistant can read. The GTD Brain plugin keeps the notes as plain Markdown, so Tasks, Dataview and Bases still work on them, and adds the synced board.
Does the plugin send my vault to GTD Brain?
Only the notes inside the GTD Brain folder, and only their title, body and the GTD frontmatter fields. Nothing outside that folder is read or sent. The plugin talks to api.minosin.com (GTD Brain's backend) for sign-in and sync and to nothing else; it is open source, so you can check.
Is it two-way?
Yes. Creating, editing, renaming or moving a note pushes the change to the board; changes made on the web, phone or by an AI assistant are pulled into the vault. When the same card changed in both places since the last sync, your note's edits win for the fields you changed and the board's for the rest.
Do I need a paid GTD Brain subscription?
No. The plugin and the sync are free, and so is the board it syncs with. A GTD Brain subscription unlocks the AI clarifying and the full mobile apps — the same one subscription that covers the web, iOS, and Android apps.
Do changes sync to my other devices?
Yes. The vault mirrors the same board as the web, iOS, and Android apps and every AI assistant you connected, so a note you move to Next Actions is on your phone before you switch apps.
Further reading
How to set up GTD in Obsidian: the step-by-step guide with screenshots · The GTD method, explained
Other connections
Connect ChatGPT · Connect Claude · Connect Claude Code · Connect Cursor · VS Code extension · Connect Telegram · Connect Gemini CLI · Connect Docker MCP Toolkit · Connect Notion · Connect Microsoft 365 Copilot
New to GTD Brain? Get started free — or skip the web entirely: installing the Obsidian plugin and signing in creates your board.