Experimenting with publishing posts from Obsidian to Pagecord via the upcoming API

This post was published by writing Markdown in Obsidian then using a new Obsidian Plugin to publish it in Pagecord via a new Pagecord API. This is an early and experimental feature, so it's not yet publicly available. The early signs are pretty good that it works though – assuming this post appears correctly 😅 Expect a limited beta test soon.

What's Obsidian and what's an API?

Obsidian is a free note-taking / text editor app that stores files locally on your device. It's extensible and has thousands of plugins, such as this upcoming Pagecord one. You write notes in Markdown which is essentially plain text with some basic formatting commands. It's pretty easy to learn.

An API is a formal way for computer programs to talk to each other without needing a browser. So, in this example, an API allows Obsidian to talk to Pagecord directly to create and update posts.

So how does this Pagecord integration work?

I've written a basic API for Pagecord which supports creating/updating posts using Markdown or HTML. It's already common for people to draft their blog posts in Obsidian and then copy/paste this Markdown into the Pagecord UI. This upcoming integration removes the need to log into Pagecord and copy/paste to publish – instead you just select "Publish to Pagecord" from the Obsidian menu and the post in Pagecord is updated automatically!

What's supported?

Most things that you can do in the Pagecord editor, you can do in Obsidian.

Images are supported. You drag them into Obsidian and they're stored locally with your Markdown files, then pushed via the API to Pagecord. You can't add an image caption though I'm afraid. Markdown doesn't support that.

Tables are supported like this:

Quotes just work, as do other things like lists and whatnot.

You can put links into quotes too of course.

Code with syntax highlighting also translates across. Here's some Ruby:

def hello_from_obsidian
  puts "👋"
end

Embeds in Pagecord are just links that get expanded in real-time when someone views a post, so these just work if you paste an embeddable link like a Spotify album:

https://open.spotify.com/album/5apkkoLPJJYZcghFfuNTF3?si=Wkum0uQETr6rJ2yp2jbCtg

What about tags, publication date, visibility and so on?

In Obsidian you can add a frontmatter section which supports properties for the options you see in the Pagecord UI. For this post, here's the front matter:

---
tags: api
slug: experimenting-with-obsidian-and-pagecord-via-the-upcoming-api
pagecord_token: a788248c
pagecord_attachments:
  Screenshot 2026-03-12 at 12.38.25.png:
    hash: e173fe73968ff9db
    sgid: eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6ImdpZDovL3BhZ2Vjb3JkL0FjdGl2ZVN0b3JhZ2U6OkJsb2IvMTgzMTE_ZXhwaXJlc19pbiIsInB1ciI6ImF0dGFjaGFibGUifX0=--65e631f8219a37e15e129d52aa3e40b2d6ee22f0
  unnamed 1.jpg:
    hash: d0f9712081a58899
    sgid: eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6ImdpZDovL3BhZ2Vjb3JkL0FjdGl2ZVN0b3JhZ2U6OkJsb2IvMTgzMTI_ZXhwaXJlc19pbiIsInB1ciI6ImF0dGFjaGFibGUifX0=--fa76b5ab249933fff6334c1926b33741fa022c96
---

The pagecord_token and pagecord_attachments fields are inserted automatically by the plugin to keep track of the sync – don't touch these! 😅

How does sync work?

The sync is one way (Obsidian -> Pagecord) and it must be activated via the Publish options in the command palette. The local copy on your device is the master copy – it's private, safe and secure. Pagecord can't mess with it!

Will everyone get API access?

Everyone who subscribes to Pagecord Premium, yes ✌️

When is this getting released?

Good question! It'll be released when it's ready and when I'm confident it "just works". In the meantime I'll be writing posts this way to properly dogfood it.

I plan to open it up to a small number of beta testers when it's ready, and when Obsidian approve the plugin for their community. Drop me an email if you'd like an opportunity to test it before it goes live.