Search years of notes and PDFs on your Mac from one agent
Idea + starter prompt, not run by us yet
For: Mac users with a big Obsidian vault and years of saved papers and scans
Mauricio Gomes runs Claude Code from inside his Obsidian vault, with a CLAUDE.md that explains how the vault is laid out and where his interests are noted. Claude finds notes and PDFs using macOS Spotlight, pulls out text with a built-in tool, and puts each day's note in a folder named by date, making new ones when needed. He puts setup at about an hour.
Steps
- Write a CLAUDE.md that explains your folder layout and naming rules.
- List your interests in a file so research stays on topic.
- Make sure Spotlight indexing is turned on for the vault, since this method is Mac only.
- Ask a search question and check that the files it finds are the right ones.
- Let it file one daily note and check the folder before trusting it with more.
Starter prompt
You are working inside my notes vault at [vault path]. Read [CLAUDE.md file] for how it is organised. Find every note or PDF about [topic], including old scanned files, and list them with paths and a one line summary. Then create today's note in the dated folder for [date] with these points: [points]. Do not move, rename or delete existing files. Show me any new folder before you create it.
Original post: mauriciogomes.com · found via agentusecases.ai. Written up in our own words. We haven't run it, so test it on made-up data first.