Constellations

A 3D star map alternative to Obsidian's Graph View.

Notes become stars. Shared tags become constellations. Folders become universes. Fly through your vault instead of staring at a flat force graph.

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What it does

Vault concept	Becomes
A note	A star, sized and colored by how connected it is
A tag shared by ≥2 notes	A constellation — its stars are linked by lines
A top-level folder	A universe — its own region of space, spiral arms once it's big enough
The vault's most-connected note	A pulsating quasar with particle jets
A brand-new or fast-growing note	A flash — a "birth" or "supernova" — no rebuild needed

Untagged notes drift as a dense galactic bulge at the core of their universe. Heavier (better-connected) notes gravitate toward the center of their constellation. Everything is jittered off a mathematically perfect spiral so it reads as a sky, not a diagram.

Features

• Fly-to navigation — click any star to swoop the camera to it and open an info card: tags, a text preview of the note, and its constellation neighbors (click through them to keep exploring).
• Galaxy jump list — a toolbar dropdown of every universe in the vault; pick one to fly straight there.
• Search — filter stars by name or tag right in the toolbar; matches stay lit, everything else dims down; Enter flies to the nearest match.
• Alive by default — twinkling stars, bloom, comets drifting through the background, idle auto-rotate, all with no configuration required.

Installing

From a release (manual)

1. Download manifest.json, main.js, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Create <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/constellations/ and put the three files there.
3. In Obsidian: Settings → Community plugins → enable "Constellations".

Via BRAT (before it's in the community catalog)

Install BRAT, then add this repository (NikShukrem/obsidian-constellations) as a beta plugin. BRAT keeps it updated automatically.

Development

npm install
npm run dev    # rebuilds main.js on file changes
npm run build  # production build

Symlink (or copy) the project folder into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/constellations/ so Obsidian picks up rebuilds. The Rebuild view command (command palette) forces the 3D scene to re-read the vault if notes changed while the panel was already open; Recenter camera snaps back to the default view.

How it's built

• src/graphBuilder.ts — builds the model: universes (top-level folders), constellations (tags shared by ≥2 notes in the same universe), and each star's connectivity-based weight (links + backlinks + tags).
• src/layout.ts — places everything in 3D: universes and constellations sit on a jittered Vogel spiral so nothing perfectly overlaps; universes with many constellations grow real spiral arms instead, with a dense bulge of untagged notes at the core; heavier stars gravitate toward the center of their constellation.
• src/view.ts — the Three.js renderer: shader-based twinkling/sparkle point stars, bloom post-processing, comets, the quasar, flash events for new/growing notes, camera fly-to, search, and the info panel.

Roadmap ideas

Not implemented yet, just on the shortlist:

• Black holes for orphaned notes (no links in or out).
• A pulsar-style faster flicker for recently-edited notes.
• Highlighting the star for whatever note is currently open in the editor.

Publishing checklist (for maintainers)

This repo is set up to submit to Obsidian's official Community Plugins list:

• manifest.json has a unique id, author, authorUrl, and a minAppVersion that actually covers every Obsidian API used (checked via the automated review at submission time — see below).
• versions.json maps plugin versions to the minimum Obsidian version.
• npm version patch|minor|major bumps manifest.json/versions.json together (see version-bump.mjs).
• Pushing a tag (matching the version in manifest.json, no v prefix) triggers .github/workflows/release.yml, which builds, attests build provenance for the release assets, and attaches main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css to a GitHub Release.
• npx eslint src/*.ts main.ts checks for unnecessary type assertions and floating promises — both of which the official review flags.
• To submit: sign in at community.obsidian.md with an Obsidian account, link your GitHub account, then Plugins → New plugin → enter the repo URL. (obsidianmd/obsidian-releases no longer accepts direct PRs to community-plugins.json — submissions go through this portal instead, which runs an automated review before human review.)

License

MIT — see LICENSE.