Use xNet from Claude Code / Codex

The same way people point Claude Code at an Obsidian vault, you can point it at your xNet workspace — and read, search, query, and edit your pages, databases, and canvases without leaving the terminal. The Agent Interfaces guide covers the surfaces in depth; this one is the quick on-ramp.

One-step connect

xnet connect claude-code            # project scope, read-only
xnet connect claude-code --user     # also install the skill for all projects
xnet connect claude-code --writes   # register the MCP server with write access
xnet connect codex                  # Codex: AGENTS.md + .codex/config.toml

xnet connect is idempotent — it installs the SKILL.md, registers the xnet MCP server, writes a CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md contract, and (with --vault <dir>) bootstraps a scoped checkout with an index. Re-running it reports what is already in place and changes nothing. It finishes by running xnet doctor --agent-access, which confirms the backend, full-text search, and signing identity are all reachable.

Works whether or not the app is running

The agent verbs resolve a backend automatically:

the desktop app’s local API (:31415) when it is running, otherwise
a standalone SQLite store — discovered from the app’s data directory, or pointed at explicitly with --db <path> (or $XNET_DB).

So an agent can work against your data even with the app closed, and web-only users can point at any local store. Writes made this way are signed by a key you provide (--key, $XNET_SIGNING_KEY) or by an enrolled agent passport (--agent <name>); the CLI refuses to persist a write under a silent throwaway identity.

Three lanes, cheapest first

flowchart LR
  A[Agent in Claude Code / Codex] -->|Bash| CLI[1 · xnet CLI]
  A -->|Read / Edit / Grep| V[2 · Vault checkout]
  A -->|MCP client| M[3 · xnet mcp serve]
  CLI --> Core[(xNet store · signed change log)]
  V <-->|checkout / commit| CLI
  M --> Core

CLI — xnet search/query/db get print plain stdout. Reach here first: it costs far fewer tokens than loading a wall of MCP tool schemas.
Vault — xnet checkout --query "…" materializes a scoped slice as Markdown you edit, then xnet commit lifts the edits back through validated mutation plans. Never check out the whole workspace.
MCP — the registered xnet server is the fallback for shell-less clients (Claude Desktop, browser). It is read-only unless you connected with --writes.

Safe when the app and the agent collide

The store stays the source of truth, and every edit becomes a validated plan — never a blind file-to-database sync. If the app writes a node after you checked it out, committing your now-stale vault edit surfaces a conflict instead of overwriting the newer value:

$ xnet status
conflict  Pages/shared-page.md  stale-export  based on updatedAt:10, live is updatedAt:11

Fix the file against the current value and commit again. Stale edits never silently win.