Add rendered HTML content support via Accept header #195

papertray3 · 2025-11-08T15:37:41Z

Summary

This PR adds support for retrieving rendered HTML content from markdown files using HTTP content negotiation. Clients can now request fully-rendered HTML by specifying Accept: application/vnd.olrapi.note+html in GET requests.

Changes

New Content Type: Added ContentTypes.olrapiNoteHtml constant (application/vnd.olrapi.note+html)
HTML Rendering: Implemented renderMarkdownToHtml() method using Obsidian's native MarkdownRenderer.render() API
Request Handling: Updated _vaultGet() to handle HTML content type requests
Documentation: Updated OpenAPI specification with new content format examples
Memory Management: Proper component lifecycle management to prevent memory leaks

Features

The rendered HTML output includes:

Wiki-links converted to HTML anchors with proper data-href attributes
Obsidian-specific markdown (callouts, embeds, transclusions)
Plugin integrations preserved (e.g., Metadata Menu icons)
Syntax-highlighted code blocks
Full semantic HTML structure

API Usage

# Get rendered HTML
curl -k https://127.0.0.1:27124/vault/path/to/note.md \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.olrapi.note+html"

Backward Compatibility

This feature:

Uses standard HTTP content negotiation (Accept header)
Does not modify existing behavior for markdown or JSON responses
Works with all GET endpoints (/vault/, /active/, /periodic/)
Is fully optional - defaults to existing markdown behavior

Testing

Tested with:

Various markdown files with wiki-links, embeds, and frontmatter
Complex documents with Dataview queries
Plugin integrations (Metadata Menu)
Both /vault/{filename} and /active/ endpoints

Use Cases

This feature enables:

Digital garden publishing workflows with preview capabilities
External rendering of Obsidian notes
Wiki-link validation before publishing
Integration with static site generators

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

papertray3 · 2025-11-09T06:56:22Z

Follow-up: I discovered Dataview/DataviewJS blocks were still empty unless the renderer had a real DOM host. The latest commit
attaches a hidden container to document.body, renders there, waits for dynamic blocks to settle, then removes it. This ensures the HTML
returned by /vault matches what Obsidian shows (full Workbench/Queue/Vault stats, etc.). Added coverage for the Accept: application/
vnd.olrapi.note+html path while I was here.

Implement DOM-based extraction of rendered Obsidian content with support for both plain text and structured JSON output formats. Features: - rendered-text content type: Plain text extraction from rendered DOM - rendered-json content type: Structured JSON with typed content blocks - Cache system for fast repeated access - Full Dataview/DataviewJS rendering support - Settings UI for cache configuration - Automatic cache invalidation on file changes Content Types: - application/vnd.olrapi.note+rendered-text (plain text) - application/vnd.olrapi.note+rendered-json (structured JSON) JSON Structure: - metadata: source path, render timestamp, format version - frontmatter: complete YAML frontmatter as object - content: array of typed blocks (heading, table, list, paragraph, code, callout) Table blocks include headers and rows as 2D arrays, making them easy to parse and analyze programmatically. Implementation: - RenderCacheManager: handles rendering and caching - StructuredExtractor: converts DOM to typed JSON blocks - Cache stored in .obsidian/render-cache/ with hash-based keys - 2-second content settlement wait for async plugin rendering - Restores original user view after extraction Benefits for AI Clients: - Tables as parseable 2D arrays - Document structure preserved with type tags - Frontmatter metadata accessible - Content queryable by type - No parsing ambiguity Testing: - Verified with complex Dataview dashboards - Tables extract correctly with headers and rows - All frontmatter fields preserved - Bundle size: 2.4mb (optimized, no PDF dependencies) 🤖 Generated with Claude Code https://claude.com/claude-code Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>

Document the new rendered-text and rendered-json content types, including usage examples, JSON schema, caching system, and troubleshooting guide. - Updated README.md with rendered content overview - Added comprehensive RENDERED_CONTENT.md guide - Includes API reference, examples, and use cases - Documents both text and JSON output formats 🤖 Generated with Claude Code Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>

coddingtonbear

Thanks so much for the patch, @papertray3 — there are some great ideas here! I’m definitely open to supporting a feature that returns rendered HTML when the user supplies an appropriate Accept header (likely text/html, as I noted in a few comments).

I did notice that this PR bundles together a few larger changes that aren’t directly related to that HTML-rendering behavior. To keep things easy to review and to get your work merged more quickly, would you mind splitting this into smaller, focused PRs, each introducing a single change or feature? When you do, a quick update to the docs in /docs would also help people understand how to use the new functionality.

Once you’ve had a chance to break things out, feel free to ping me — I really appreciate the contribution, and I think the rendered-HTML feature in particular will be super useful to a lot of users!

coddingtonbear · 2025-11-15T18:50:41Z

README.md


 This was inspired by [Vinzent03](https://github.com/Vinzent03)'s [advanced-uri plugin](https://github.com/Vinzent03/obsidian-advanced-uri) with hopes of expanding the automation options beyond the limitations of custom URL schemes.
+
+## Rendered Content Support


We have public docs in the /docs/ folder. Instead of documenting this in the readme, that should probably be in the docs themselves if you could.

coddingtonbear · 2025-11-15T18:51:40Z

RENDERED_CONTENT.md

@@ -0,0 +1,540 @@
+# Rendered Content API


I'm betting this is an artifact created when you asked an LLM to help you code this and I bet you didn't intend to include this in the PR.

coddingtonbear · 2025-11-15T18:55:10Z

src/constants.ts

  olrapiNoteJson = "application/vnd.olrapi.note+json",
+  olrapiNoteHtml = "application/vnd.olrapi.note+html",
+  olrapiRenderedText = "application/vnd.olrapi.note+rendered-text",
+  olrapiRenderedJson = "application/vnd.olrapi.note+rendered-json",


Forgive me, but this PR is already extremely long -- could I trouble you to break this apart into individual PRs for each of these types of content? Only one of these content types appears to be discussed in this PR; so I think sticking to rendered HTML in this one is probably the right choice, and I want to say: I might need some convincing before I'll be up for taking on a patch for the other two rendering options.

Second thing: you don't need to invent a new content type for things like html/text/json -- those already exist:

text/html

text/plain

application/json

coddingtonbear · 2025-11-15T18:56:51Z

src/main.ts

+        );
+
+      // Cache statistics
+      if (this.plugin.renderCacheManager) {


Was there a particular performance problem you found that inspired you to want to cache renders? It seems like kind of a lot of complication to add unless there are severe performance problems.

papertray3 force-pushed the main branch from af31923 to 121398c Compare November 10, 2025 18:33

coddingtonbear requested changes Nov 15, 2025

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Add rendered HTML content support via Accept header #195

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papertray3 commented Nov 8, 2025

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		This was inspired by [Vinzent03](https://github.com/Vinzent03)'s [advanced-uri plugin](https://github.com/Vinzent03/obsidian-advanced-uri) with hopes of expanding the automation options beyond the limitations of custom URL schemes.

		## Rendered Content Support

Add rendered HTML content support via Accept header #195

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papertray3 commented Nov 8, 2025

Summary

Changes

Features

API Usage

Backward Compatibility

Testing

Use Cases

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papertray3 commented Nov 9, 2025

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