Obsidian Plugin 4.0: Direct Publishing Without GitHub

The Flowershow Obsidian plugin now connects directly to Flowershow Cloud. No GitHub repository required. Simpler setup, faster publishing.

Ola Rubaj
Ola Rubaj

We’re excited to announce Flowershow Obsidian Plugin 4.0 — a major update that significantly simplifies how you publish your Obsidian vault.

The biggest change: you no longer need a GitHub repository. The plugin now publishes directly to Flowershow using Personal Access Tokens (PATs).

Background: Why We Changed the Publishing Model

When we first built the Flowershow Obsidian plugin, GitHub was the only way in Flowershow to:

  • authenticate users,
  • and trigger publishing workflows.

Over time, a clear pattern emerged from user feedback:

  • many users don’t use GitHub at all,
  • others found the setup intimidating,
  • and publishing often felt slower than it needed to be.

Meanwhile, Flowershow has matured enough to handle authentication, uploads, and publishing directly — without relying on third-party infrastructure.

What’s New

No GitHub Required

Previously, publishing required:

  1. Creating a GitHub account
  2. Setting up a repository
  3. Connecting Flowershow to GitHub
  4. Configuring the plugin with GitHub credentials

Now, it’s simply:

  1. Generate a Flowershow Personal Access Token
  2. Enter it in the plugin settings
  3. Publish

That’s it!

Simpler Configuration

The plugin settings are now streamlined to just what you need:

  • Flowershow PAT Token — authentication
  • Site Name — where your content is published (optional, your vault name will be used by default)
  • Exclude Patterns — regex rules to skip files (optional)
  • Root Directory - the directory within your vault that you want to publish (optional; if you're not publishing the entire vault.)

Getting Started

New Users

  1. Install the Flowershow plugin from Obsidian Community Plugins
  2. Sign up at https://cloud.flowershow.app
  3. Generate a Personal Access Token at https://cloud.flowershow.app/tokens
  4. Enter your token in the plugin settings
  5. Click the Flowershow icon and publish (or use Flowershow commands in the commands palette)

Existing Users

If you’re already using the Flowershow plugin with GitHub, you have two options.

Option A: Keep Publishing via GitHub

If you want to keep using GitHub for version control, backups, or collaboration:

  1. Sync your vault to GitHub using another tool, e.g.:
    • Obsidian Git plugin (or else)
    • GitHub Desktop
    • Git CLI
  2. Flowershow will continue to publish from your GitHub repository as before

This keeps your existing workflow intact — the only difference is that vault → GitHub syncing is now handled outside the Flowershow plugin.

If you want the simpler, faster workflow without GitHub:

  1. Disconnect your site from GitHub in your Flowershow dashboard to prevent any weird sync behavior (especially if you make changes later on in the GitHub repo)
  2. Generate a Flowershow Personal Access Token.
  3. Enter the token in the plugin settings,
  4. Important: If you previously used the rootDir config to select a subfolder in your repo for publishing, you should now configure this in the plugin settings instead.
  5. Publish as usual.
Note

After switching, all your files will initially show as "changed" in the publish status. This is expected — the plugin now calculates file hashes differently than GitHub did. Simply click Publish All once, and subsequent syncs will correctly detect only actual changes.

Important

If you had config.json or custom.css files in your GitHub repository that weren't in your local vault, you'll need to copy them over. These files should now live in your vault (or your rootDir folder if you use one) and be published alongside your other files.

To see .json and .css files in Obsidian:

  1. Go to Settings → Files and Links
  2. Enable Detect all file extensions

Note: Obsidian won't edit these files directly — clicking on them will open them in your OS default text editor. Edit there, save, and publish as usual.

Your existing site, URLs, and content will continue to work exactly as before.

You may delete your GitHub repository after switching, or keep it purely as a backup — the choice is yours.

Questions?

Have questions about the update or need help migrating?
Join us on Discord or leave a comment below — we’re happy to help 🌸

— The Flowershow Team

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