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Generative AI Conversations

The Pieces for Obsidian Plugin provides versatile tools to interact with generative AI, enabling you to gain insights, debug efficiently, and enhance your notes and workflows directly within Obsidian.

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Accessing Copilot Chat in Obsidian

There are two primary ways to access generative AI conversations with the Pieces Copilot.

via Right-Click Menu

via the Pieces Plugin Sidebar

Contextualized Chats

Using the Pieces: Ask Copilot About Selection command lets you interact with Copilot regarding specific text or code within your notes.

There are two ways to access this command:

via Right-Click Menu

via Command Palette

This approach is ideal for localized queries where you need quick insights or guidance on a specific selection.

Adding Context to Copilot Chats

There are a number of individual items you can add as context to a chat, namely Files, Folders, Snippets, Websites, and Messages.

This flexibility is particularly useful when the reference material you want to use isn’t directly accessible in Obsidian or when you want to compartmentalize context, avoiding overlap between files or projects.

To do this, you can select the Starred Message Icon in the bottom-left corner of your Copilot Chat window, openable from the Obsidian sidebar.

Click the Starred Message Icon then add whatever context items you need.

Adding Code Snippets

You can paste snippets of code as a code block inside of any Copilot Chat by clicking the { } icon inside the chat window, then pasting in your code.

This is useful for bringing in code that isn’t present immediately in the active file as context, or for comparisons and suggestions.

Extracting Code from Screenshots

You can also extract code from screenshots directly from the Copilot chat menu by selecting Extract Code from Screenshot, selecting the desired screenshot from your Finder (macOS) or File Explorer (Windows/Linux) menu, and confirming.

Pieces Copilot will then scan the screenshot and generate the code captured from the image into the chat, from which you can copy, insert at your cursor, save it as a snippet, and more.

Adding Folders from File Explorer

If you right-click on a folder in Obsidian’s file explorer, you’ll see the following options: Pieces: Add Vault to Copilot Context and Pieces: Add File to Copilot Context, so you can take any folder or file in the project you’re working in and immediately have the Pieces Copilot interact with it.

Improving Code Consistency & Standardization

The Pieces Copilot helps improve code quality by identifying inconsistencies and providing actionable suggestions for standardization.

Naming Inconsistencies

If functions across your workspace use inconsistent naming patterns (e.g., authenticateUser in authHandler.go vs. retrieveUserProfile in userHandler.go), Pieces Copilot can suggest adopting a standardized naming convention for better readability and maintainability, like this:

Copyfunc authenticateUser(ctx context.Context, credentials Credentials) (User, error) {
    if credentials.Username == "" || credentials.Password == "" {
        return User{}, errors.New("missing credentials")
    }
}

Inconsistent Error Handling

If error-handling strategies differ across files (e.g., structured errors in authService.go vs. inconsistent handling in userService.go), Pieces Copilot can help unify the approach:

Copyfunc LoginUser(credentials Credentials) (string, error) {
    token, err := authenticate(credentials)
    if err != nil {
        return "", fmt.Errorf("login failed: %w", err)
    }
    return token, nil
}