Accessing Team Wikis in Obsidian

Access your team’s wiki from Obsidian on any device. Documents sync automatically between the web-based wiki and your local Obsidian vault — edit from whichever tool you prefer.

Why Obsidian?

Obsidian gives you offline access, powerful search, backlinks, graph view, and a distraction-free writing experience. Your wiki content becomes a local folder of markdown files that you own.

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How It Works

Your team wiki runs on Outline, a collaborative wiki with a web interface. Behind the scenes, a sync service exports all wiki content as markdown files to an S3-compatible storage bucket. Obsidian connects to that bucket using a free community plugin.

Edit Anywhere

Web browser, desktop app, or phone — your changes sync everywhere.

Offline First

Documents live on your device. Edit without internet, sync when connected.

Images Included

Attachments and images sync alongside your documents and display inline.

All Devices

macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android are all supported.

Source of Truth

The web wiki is always the source of truth. If the same document is edited in both the wiki and Obsidian at the same time, the wiki version wins. Your local version is preserved in version history and can be recovered by an admin.

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What You Need

• Obsidian (free) — Download here
• Remotely Save plugin (free) — installed from within Obsidian
• Sync credentials — ask your team admin for these (S3 endpoint, access key, secret key, bucket, and prefix)

No accounts to create. No subscriptions needed.

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Desktop Setup (macOS / Windows / Linux)

Time needed: About 5 minutes.

1. Install Obsidian from obsidian.md/download.

2. Create a vault. Open Obsidian and click “Open folder as vault.” Pick or create an empty folder with a descriptive name (e.g., Team-Wiki).

3. Install the Remotely Save plugin.

   • Go to Settings (gear icon) > Community Plugins
   • Click “Turn off Restricted Mode” and confirm
   • Click Browse, search for Remotely Save, then Install and Enable it

4. Configure the sync connection. Open Remotely Save settings and enter the credentials your admin gave you:

   Setting	What to enter
   Choose Service	S3 or S3-compatible
   Endpoint	Your team’s S3 endpoint URL
   Region	us-east-1
   Access Key ID	From your admin
   Secret Access Key	From your admin
   Bucket Name	From your admin
   S3 URL Style	Path-Style

5. Set the remote prefix. Scroll down to “Change The Remote Prefix (experimental).” Type the prefix your admin gave you (this identifies which wiki to sync) and click Confirm.

6. Adjust three settings.

   Setting	Change to	Where
   Use Accurate MTime	Enable	Main settings
   Sync _ Files Or Folders	Enable	Advanced settings
   Abort Sync If Modification %	100 (temporarily)	Main settings

7. First sync. Click “Check Connectivity” (should succeed), then click Sync Now. Wait 1-2 minutes for all documents and images to download. You should see folders appear in the left sidebar.

8. After the first sync, set “Abort Sync If Modification %” back to 50 as a safety guard for future syncs.

Auto-sync runs every 5 minutes while Obsidian is open. Click the Remotely Save icon to sync manually anytime.

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Mobile Setup (iOS / Android)

iOS

1. Install Obsidian from the App Store.
2. Open the app and tap Create new vault. Name it after your wiki.
3. Go to Settings > Community Plugins > Turn off Restricted Mode.
4. Browse for Remotely Save, install and enable it.
5. Enter the same S3 settings as the desktop setup above.
6. Set the remote prefix for your wiki and click Confirm.
7. Adjust the three settings (MTime, underscore folders, modification %).
8. Tap Sync Now to download everything.

Android

1. Install Obsidian from the Play Store.
2. Open the app and tap Create new vault. Name it after your wiki.
3. Go to Settings > Community Plugins > Turn off Restricted Mode.
4. Browse for Remotely Save, install and enable it.
5. Enter the same S3 settings as the desktop setup above.
6. Set the remote prefix for your wiki and click Confirm.
7. Adjust the three settings (MTime, underscore folders, modification %).
8. Tap Sync Now to download everything.

Mobile Sync Behavior

On mobile, sync only runs while Obsidian is in the foreground. Open the app periodically to pick up changes from the web wiki.

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Editing Documents

What You Can Do

• Edit any document — changes sync back to the wiki automatically
• Add content to existing pages
• View images inline in your notes
• Search everything with Obsidian’s powerful search (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + F)
• Use Obsidian features — backlinks, graph view, tags, daily notes, etc.
• Work offline — edits sync when you reconnect

What to Avoid

Don’t Break the Sync

These actions will confuse the sync system:

• Don’t rename files — filenames map to wiki page IDs
• Don’t delete the frontmatter — the --- block at the top of each file contains sync metadata
• New files work if placed inside a collection folder (e.g., Admin/My New Page.md). The folder name must match an existing wiki collection. Files at the vault root are ignored.
• Don’t move files between folders — folder structure maps to wiki collections

Handling Conflicts

If you and someone else edit the same page at the same time, the web wiki version wins. This is intentional — it prevents accidental overwrites. Your local edits are preserved in git version history and an admin can recover them if needed.

In practice, conflicts are rare. Most teams edit different pages at different times.

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Multiple Wikis

If your team has more than one wiki, create a separate Obsidian vault for each:

1. In Obsidian, click the vault name (bottom-left) > Open another vault > Open folder as vault
2. Pick a new empty folder
3. Install Remotely Save in the new vault (plugins are per-vault)
4. Enter the same S3 credentials but use a different prefix for each wiki

Switch between vaults using the vault switcher in the bottom-left corner.

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Using with AI Tools

If you’re a developer, you can also access the wiki as a git repo for AI-assisted editing:

# Clone the wiki repo (ask admin for the URL)
git clone <your-wiki-repo-url>
cd <wiki-folder>

# Use your preferred AI coding tool
claude    # Claude Code
cursor .  # Cursor
code .    # VS Code + Copilot

Edits committed and pushed to the repo trigger an immediate sync back to the wiki — no waiting for the 15-minute cycle.

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Troubleshooting

Problem	Solution
”Check Connectivity” fails	Double-check the endpoint URL, credentials, and that Path-Style is enabled
Sync aborts with “modification %” error	Temporarily set the threshold to 100, sync, then set back to 50
Images not showing	Enable “Sync _ Files Or Folders” in Remotely Save advanced settings, then re-sync
Documents missing	Check that the Remote Prefix matches your wiki
Changes not appearing in the wiki	Obsidian edits can take up to 15 minutes to reach the wiki. Git pushes are instant.
Sync seems stuck	Close and reopen Obsidian, then manually trigger sync

Getting Help

If something isn’t working, reach out to your team admin with:

• Which wiki you’re trying to access
• Which device you’re on (Mac, iPhone, Android, etc.)
• A screenshot of what you see
• The Remotely Save log (Settings > Remotely Save > scroll to bottom > “View Logs”)

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For Admins: Setting This Up

If you want to set up this sync pipeline for your own Outline instance, the infrastructure and scripts are documented in the ai-coding-env repo under servers/outline/. The setup involves:

• A Python sync daemon that exports from Outline’s API to markdown files
• A cron job running every 15 minutes
• A MinIO S3 bucket for the Remotely Save connection
• A GitLab repo for version history and Claude Code access
• A webhook handler for instant sync on git push

See servers/outline/README-SETUP.md for the full admin guide.