Figuring Out Obsidian + Ollama


I followed this howto on Innovation for Bytes1 to set up Ollama and connect it to the Smart Connections plugin. It had the missing bits of documentation for the Model Platform and path bits.

🤖 - AI-Generated Content via llama3

Based on your notes for SCUP 2024, here are the most important highlights:

  1. Key Themes: The conference will focus on three key themes: (1) Reimagining Campuses for the Future, (2) Navigating Complexity and Change, and (3) Building a Culture of Innovation.
  2. Trends and Insights: You noted that some of the key trends and insights to be discussed include:
    • The impact of technology on campus planning and operations
    • Strategies for creating more inclusive and equitable campuses
    • The role of sustainability in shaping campus design and decision-making
  3. Featured Sessions: Some of the featured sessions and tracks will cover topics such as:
    • Innovative approaches to campus master planning and design
    • Effective strategies for managing campus change and disruption
    • Best practices for implementing innovative technologies on campus
  4. Speakers and Presenters: The conference will feature a range of speakers and presenters, including experts from higher education, architecture, engineering, and more.
  5. Networking Opportunities: SCUP 2024 will provide ample opportunities for networking with peers, including a reception and exhibit hall.

These are just some of the most important highlights based on your notes. If you have any specific questions or would like me to elaborate on these points, please feel free to ask!

Success? It looks like Obsidian’s Smart Connections plugin is talking with llama3 via Ollama!

But - the “summary” is extremely generic, and includes content that wasn’t in my notes. I didn’t write anything about “ample opportunities for networking with peers, including a reception and exhibit hall”. That definitely didn’t come from Obsidian. It sounds like something that might have been pulled from the SCUP 2024 website - but even that doesn’t have that content. And the future-tense used in the summary suggests it was taken from marketing blurbs - my notes were definitely not written in that tense. Is it just making stuff up based on what it’s seen from other conference descriptions included in its training data? If so, that does not bode well for a tool intended to make sense of my own notes…

I got it kinda working, but wow is it flakey as hell. Sometimes the chat thing will (slowly) respond. With stuff that doesn’t directly relate to my notes. Sometimes, it’ll spin for a bit and throw an error message:

Smart Connections error messageHelpful error message from Smart Connections. It looks like something funky being (not?) returned from llama3 via Ollama (the data bit looks like part of the structured return data) but who knows? 🤷‍♂️

So. I made some progress, at least. It’s not quite working, but almost? I don’t know. Maybe it’s working and this is it? Either way, I’m out of time for futzing around with this for now…


  1. I’d have given attribution, but the author has intentionally anonymized themselves. So, thanks “NoOne”. ↩︎


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