configure-obsidian-kanban

Configure Obsidian Kanban

Get the obsidian-community/obsidian-kanban plugin installed and tuned so the boards the projects domain writes (<slug>.kanban.md) render and behave the way those skills assume. This is a one-shot setup task -- run it once per vault.

The contract this skill aligns to is BOARD-FORMAT.md: @{YYYY-MM-DD} date tags, a **Complete** marker in Done, and the %% kanban:settings %% block.

Never commit in the vault. The user manages the vault's git separately. Write files, then stop -- do not stage or commit anything under the vault.

Step 1: Locate the Vault and Plugin

Find the vault root (the directory containing .obsidian/). The plugin lives at:

.obsidian/plugins/obsidian-kanban/
  main.js
  manifest.json
  styles.css

If you can't find .obsidian/, ask the user for the vault path.

Step 2: Install if Missing

If .obsidian/plugins/obsidian-kanban/main.js is absent, install it:

1. Fetch the latest release from the GitHub API: https://api.github.com/repos/mgmeyers/obsidian-kanban/releases/latest
2. Download the three release assets -- main.js, manifest.json, styles.css -- into .obsidian/plugins/obsidian-kanban/ (create the directory first).
3. Enable the plugin by adding "obsidian-kanban" to the array in .obsidian/community-plugins.json (create the file as ["obsidian-kanban"] if it doesn't exist). Read-modify-write -- don't clobber other enabled plugins.

Tell the user the plugin won't load until Obsidian is reloaded (Cmd/Ctrl-R or restart). If it's already installed, skip to configuration and note the installed version from manifest.json.

Step 3: Configure Settings

The plugin's global settings live in .obsidian/plugins/obsidian-kanban/data.json. Read-modify-write -- merge these keys into whatever is there, leave unrecognised keys untouched, and don't overwrite a setting the user has deliberately changed without flagging it.

Setting	Value	Why it matters for the projects boards
date-trigger	"@"	Matches the @{YYYY-MM-DD} deadline syntax in BOARD-FORMAT
date-format	"YYYY-MM-DD"	The on-disk date format the project skills read and write
date-display-format	"YYYY-MM-DD"	What the rendered card shows
show-relative-date	true	Surfaces "in 3 days" on dated milestone cards
link-date-to-daily-note	false	Deadlines are milestones, not journal day-links
hide-date-in-title	false	Keep deadlines visible on the card face
archive-with-date	true	Completed cards keep their date when auto-archived from Done
show-checkboxes	true	Cards are checkboxes -- the readable-without-the-plugin format
new-line-trigger	"enter"	Predictable card entry during manual edits

If data.json doesn't exist, create it with exactly these keys.

Step 4: Confirm Board Compatibility

The per-board %% kanban:settings %% block (written by /new-project) overrides globals per file. Don't rewrite existing boards. Just confirm the global defaults above don't fight the board format -- the date trigger and format are the ones that must agree, and Step 3 sets them.

Step 5: Report

obsidian-kanban {installed vX.Y.Z | already present vX.Y.Z} and configured.

• Settings written: .obsidian/plugins/obsidian-kanban/data.json
• Date syntax aligned to @{YYYY-MM-DD}

Reload Obsidian to pick up changes, then open any <slug>.kanban.md to verify it renders as a board.

Do not commit -- the vault's git is the user's to manage.