# Word-Smith: an Obsidian writing studio built around one master order

> Word-Smith is a TypeScript Obsidian plugin that turns loose vault notes into an ordered manuscript, with a metadata Organizer, word targets, five writing modes and export. It asks for Obsidian 1.13.7 or newer and writes a single helper file you must not lose.

**Sadsnake1/word-smith** — Dedicated Writing Studio for Obsidian

- Repository: https://github.com/Sadsnake1/word-smith
- Stars: 546 · Forks: 10
- Language: TypeScript
- License: MIT
- Published: 2026-10-22 · Updated: 2026-10-22 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/sadsnake1-word-smith

## Word-Smith treats the vault you already have as the book

Word-Smith is a TypeScript Obsidian plugin that positions itself as a dedicated writing studio rather than another way to capture notes. The project makes a point of what it does not do: there is no project wizard and no special book folder. Your chapters are whatever notes you already wrote, the book lives wherever you put it, and the plugin only takes over ordering, counting and export. That framing matters because it keeps the migration cost at zero. You do not convert an existing structure into a new one, you point the plugin at notes that are already there.

The audience is writers with long work inside Obsidian, a novel, a thesis, a manual, where filename prefixes like 001-Preface tend to accumulate. The project description also calls out the absence of AI and of telemetry next to your texts, which matters for people who write unpublished work inside the same vault as their work notes. Every feature carries its own toggle, so the plugin can be reduced to a writing surface and little else.

## One drag order that survives into the exported manuscript

The Organizer is the centerpiece, and its central claim is that ordering happens once. You drag a row, and the order sticks in three places: the file tree, the table itself, and the finished manuscript. The plugin's own comparison is blunt about what this replaces, since the README says the ordering lives wherever you look rather than in a naming scheme you have to keep maintaining forever.

Around that ordering sit ordinary table mechanics that matter on a large project. Rows are filterable, sortable and searchable. You set a target on a note, on a chapter or on the whole book, add a deadline, and the Organizer works out how many words a day reach that target, with weekends excluded if you pick your working days. Folders sum the properties of their children and a Total row sits at the bottom. A flag column with your own icon and color marks what still needs a pass, and ctrl-clicking several rows lets you edit them in bulk, which the README suggests as a way to clean up duplicated tags in frontmatter. Every change is a single undo step, sort and filter settings are saved across restarts, and the table follows whichever note you have open unless you pin it.

## Columns for files that have no frontmatter at all

What separates the Organizer from Obsidian's own Bases view is file coverage, and the README is explicit that Bases handles markdown notes while the Organizer takes every filetype in the vault. Any property can become a column, and the column editor is type aware: tags render as pills, a checkbox becomes a toggle, a date opens a picker.

Beyond your own properties, the plugin can compute columns for word count, target, deadline, flag, reading grade, vocabulary, pages, paragraphs, tasks, backlinks, outgoing links, footnotes, and created and modified timestamps. You switch each one on individually, which keeps the table readable when a book has hundreds of notes and a wide property set would otherwise become a wall of columns. The same mechanism applies to non-text assets, so a PDF can be tagged, a spreadsheet can carry a checkbox, and a book cover can get a description. The README notes that you can build an ebook database with real epub files in the mix.

## The ws-structure.md file is the Organizer's real dependency

There is a single file that the rest of the plugin leans on, and the README tells you not to lose it. For non-markdown files, Word-Smith writes its metadata into `ws-structure.md`, a file that lives in your vault. Markdown notes keep their properties in their own frontmatter as usual, but anything the Organizer knows about a PDF, an epub or a spreadsheet is recorded in that one document.

That design keeps the plugin from rewriting binary assets in place, which is a sensible trade, but it also means the vault now contains a generated file whose value is not obvious from its name. If you exclude it from sync, exclude generated vault files from backup, or clean it up as junk during a maintenance pass, the Organizer's view of your non-markdown files degrades while the files themselves still look untouched. Before trusting the plugin with a large mixed library, decide where that file gets backed up alongside the notes, and treat it as part of the vault rather than as plugin scratch space.

## Writing modes that include a backspace lock

The distraction tooling ships as a set of named modes rather than one toggle. Zen removes the interface progressively, piece by piece. Letter box narrows the visible column so the surrounding window stops competing for attention. Typewriter mode keeps the cursor at a fixed vertical position, and Page mode renders your text as a book page with the Zen layout applied.

The most opinionated option is Hemingway mode, which locks your backspace so a first draft can only move forward. The project description calls the result painful and then says it works, which is an honest framing for a constraint that trades editing speed for an intact draft. If you write deliberately, the mode keeps you from smoothing over rough sentences in the first pass. If you need to fix a mistake immediately, the same feature is an obstacle, and the mode list also includes writing modes with no such lock for that reason.

## The powerline bar is a status line you write as text

The status bar is configured by typing it. You write the bar as plain text and the punctuation you place between token markers becomes the shape you see, so the layout is authored rather than picked from a form. The available tokens cover the numbers a writer actually watches: words, characters, reading time, pages, tasks, properties, backlinks, the flag on the current note, your target including the daily share when a deadline is set, typing speed, the time, and a battery indicator. The README notes that themes repaint the whole workspace, editor, sidebars, panels and even the text cursor, so the bar changes appearance with the color scheme rather than keeping a fixed look.

## Release cadence, license and the limits of the model

The project is not archived and the last push was on 2026-10-20. Three releases landed within the same week: 1.8.6 on 2026-10-16, 1.8.7 on 2026-10-18 and 1.8.8 on 2026-10-20, which suggests a small, active release rhythm rather than occasional bursts. The license is MIT, and the repository carries a THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md file alongside a CONTRIBUTING.md and a BUILDING.md. Localization lives in a `locales/` directory, and the project states it works in 24 languages.

The constraints are equally clear. Word-Smith requires Obsidian 1.13.7, with installer version 1.13.7 or newer, on both desktop and mobile, so an older vault is simply out of scope. There is no separate workspace, no cloud sync layer and no account, and the README does not document rollback or a migration path for the `ws-structure.md` file if it is damaged. The developer workflow lives in `package.json`, where the scripts cover a build, a type check, a lint pass and a smoke test. Contributors work from the repository rather than from a published source archive.

## Getting the plugin in and doing something with it

Word-Smith is distributed as an Obsidian plugin and supports Obsidian 1.13.7 (installer version 1.13.7+) and newer, on desktop and mobile. The project links to an Install section and to a Docs folder without spelling the steps out inline, so the practical route is the Obsidian plugin directory or the releases page of the project on GitHub. Contributors who prefer to build from the checkout use the scripts declared in `package.json`:

```json
  "scripts": {
    "build": "node esbuild.config.mjs",
    "check": "tsc --noEmit",
    "lint": "eslint src",
    "test": "node test/smoke.js"
  },
```

A first real use is short. Open a note inside the folder that holds your chapters, open the Organizer, and the table follows that note. Drag one row to reorder it and the new order is reflected in the file tree, the table and later exports. Set a target and a deadline on a chapter, and the plugin returns a words per day figure for your chosen working days. Add the metadata you care about, turn on only the columns you need, and check that `ws-structure.md` has appeared in the vault root once you tag a file that is not markdown.

## Conclusion

Word-Smith fits writers who already keep long work inside Obsidian and want ordering, deadlines and export without leaving the vault. It does not fit anyone on an older Obsidian build, and it does not fit teams that need the metadata store to survive a careless vault sync. Before adopting it, open your longest book folder and check the Obsidian version you run, confirm the `ws-structure.md` file will be backed up with the rest of the vault, and read the Organizer notes under `docs/` to see whether its row model matches how you already tag chapters.

## FAQ

### What does Word-Smith add to Obsidian?

It adds a writing studio layer on top of a vault you already use: an Organizer table for ordering chapters and editing metadata, word targets with deadlines, writing modes that include Zen, Letter box, Typewriter, Page and Hemingway, a configurable powerline status bar, themes, export, and a writing history with a report.

### Which Obsidian version does Word-Smith require?

It works with Obsidian 1.13.7, with installer version 1.13.7 or newer, on desktop and mobile.

### Where does Word-Smith store metadata for files that are not markdown notes?

For non-markdown files it writes the metadata into a file named `ws-structure.md` that lives in your vault, which the README warns you not to lose.

### Does Word-Smith use AI services or send telemetry?

The README states there is no AI and no telemetry near your texts, and the plugin works inside the vault you already have.

### How do I install Word-Smith?

The project points to an Install section and a Docs folder rather than listing the steps inline. It ships as an Obsidian plugin for Obsidian 1.13.7 or newer, so it comes from the plugin directory or the project releases, and contributors can build it with the scripts in `package.json`.

## Sources

- [Issues](https://github.com/Sadsnake1/word-smith/issues)
- [License: MIT](https://github.com/Sadsnake1/word-smith/blob/main/LICENSE)
- [README](https://github.com/Sadsnake1/word-smith/blob/main/README.md)
- [Releases](https://github.com/Sadsnake1/word-smith/releases)
- [Sadsnake1/word-smith on GitHub](https://github.com/Sadsnake1/word-smith)

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Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/sadsnake1-word-smith