Obsidian Webhooks & Events

Overview

Complete guide to Obsidian's event system: vault events (create, modify, delete, rename), workspace events (layout, leaf changes, editor state), metadataCache events, DOM events, custom EventRef patterns, and periodic tasks. Every event registration uses this.registerEvent() for automatic cleanup on plugin unload.

Prerequisites

• Working Obsidian plugin with onload() / onunload() lifecycle
• Understanding of TypeScript event handler signatures
• Familiarity with Obsidian's TFile, TFolder, and WorkspaceLeaf types

Instructions

Step 1: Vault Events — File Lifecycle

Vault events fire when files and folders are created, modified, deleted, or renamed.

import { Plugin, TFile, TFolder, TAbstractFile } from 'obsidian';