I built Hydrate because I wanted Cursor-style AI assistance in my notes, not just a chatbot bolted onto the sidebar.
What it does: You chat with an AI that can read, edit, and create files across your vault. Drag in a note for context, ask it to restructure your project docs, or have it extract todos from meeting notes into your task list.
The free tier is actually usable. Core features—chat, file operations, semantic search, slash commands—all work with your own API keys. No markup, no usage limits from us.
Paid features I actually use daily:
Image input (Pro, $10/mo): I photograph whiteboard sketches and book pages, drop them into chat, and ask Hydrate to transcribe or summarize into my notes. Sounds small, but it's changed how I capture ideas.
MCP integrations (Pro): Connect external tools. I have it pulling context from our internal docs API during planning sessions.
Custom views (Max, $20/mo): This one's wild. Describe what you want—"show my recipes as cards grouped by cuisine"—and it generates a React view on the spot. I built a project dashboard in about 3 minutes of back-and-forth. Views hot-reload as you iterate.
If you like using Obsidian daily, I hope you will love using Hydrate.
It's an Obsidian plugin. Install from Community Plugins or grab it at hydrateagent.com.
Happy to answer questions about the architecture or how specific features work.