Getting Started with Smart Plugins

Start with one plugin and one task. A Store row can show that a plugin is loaded; complete one result inside the plugin before treating setup as finished.

When to use this guide

Use this guide when you are installing your first Smart Plugin, returning after an update, or unsure whether a Store state is enough to begin. The first workflow uses Connections because it reaches a visible note-level result without requiring a chat provider.

Before you start

• Open Obsidian Desktop with the vault where you want to use Smart Plugins.
• Open a meaningful note with enough text to compare against other notes.
• Make sure you can open Browse Smart Plugins from a Smart Plugin settings page, the Smart Environment status menu, or the Command Palette.

First win: open one related note

This is the shortest first result when you already have a meaningful note in view.

1. Activate Connections

Open Browse Smart Plugins. Find the Connections edition you intend to use and complete the action shown on its row.

The normal lifecycle is:

Installed -> Enable -> Enabled -> Active

If the row shows Reload required to activate version, Reload required to disable, or Reload required for Smart Environment, follow that full instruction before continuing. Configured is not a Store badge; it means the plugin-specific prerequisites are complete.

In the Store, separate track from lifecycle: Core and Pro identify the edition, Active rows expose Open settings, and an installed but disabled row exposes Enable. Version and update timing can change; follow the action on your row.

Use the track label to choose an edition, then follow the exact state or action on that row. After activation, complete the plugin-specific prerequisites and test one real result.

See all Store states and recovery actions.

2. Prepare the current note

Open a note with enough meaningful text to be indexed. For Connections, Smart Environment must be ready and the active note must be an eligible Smart Source.

If the status bar is still loading, wait. If the note is missing, choose Inspect active note from the Environment menu.

3. Open Connections

Use the command for the loaded edition:

• Core: Smart Connections: Open: Connections view
• Pro: Smart Connections Pro: Open: Connections view

The view should target the active note and show ranked related notes.

4. Open one useful result

Review a promising title and score, then open the note. Confirm that the opened content helps the starting note.

That is the first win: active note -> related results -> reviewed source -> opened note.

Continue with Getting started with Smart Connections.

Find the shared Smart Plugin surfaces

Open these after the first result so you know where to diagnose setup, source, and model problems.

Smart Environment menu

The status-bar menu provides the current entries:

• Open status view
• Inspect active note
• Show stats
• Export data
• Milestones
• Notifications
• Browse Smart Plugins

See Store entry points, Stats, and Milestones.

Status view

Smart Environment ready and Ready mean no import or embedding work is active. They do not prove that a plugin result will be useful. The view also exposes Open events feed, Environment stats, and Browse Smart Plugins.

See Environment readiness and recovery.

Environment stats

Check Eligible, Current, Missing, Skipped, and Unexpected separately. 100% coverage applies to eligible items under the current policy and model; it does not mean every vault file is embedded.

See How to read Environment stats.

Sources and models

Smart Environment settings own source exclusions, block embedding, minimum lengths, and default models. Change one global setting at a time, then wait for preparation to settle before comparing results.

The built-in picker includes exact worker labels and marks experimental models. Switching models can require a separate index. Use Re-index embeddings only when you intend to rebuild that model's embeddings.

See Model changes and re-indexing.

Events and notifications

Choose Notifications or Open events feed. Filter by Milestone, Attention, Error, Warning, Info, or Debug. Use this feed to understand retained background events; do not paste its full debug output into support without removing sensitive paths and content.

Smart Milestones

Milestones group detected actions by plugin. A checked row means the event was detected. It does not grade the quality of the result.

See How Milestones work.

Choose the next result

Recovery map

Next steps

• Smart Plugins Store and Milestones documentation
• Smart Environment FAQs
• Continue into the Smart Loop after one single-plugin result works