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Guide · AI notes · vaultcraft

AI note taking tool for students: how to take notes with AI from lecture slides

Installing takes about a minute. Turning three lectures into linked Obsidian notes takes about seven. Below: how to do it, what a real run produced, and which tool to pick if you already have notes.

Real Obsidian graph view of a four-course study vault built by vaultcraft, one colour per course, hundreds of linked notes
A real vault. Four courses of slides and notebooks, built by vaultcraft and opened in Obsidian's graph view. Each dot is a note, each line a link, one colour per course.

Install in one minute

Claude Code

/plugin marketplace add MikolajSapek/vaultcraft
/plugin install vaultcraft@vaultcraft

Claude app

Download zip

Customize › Plugins › Upload

Codex

codex plugin marketplace add MikolajSapek/vaultcraft
codex plugin add vaultcraft@vaultcraft

Cursor

Open Marketplace

or /add-plugin

ChatGPT

In review

GitHub

Open repo
  1. Slides in one folder
  2. /vaultcraft ./folder
  3. About 7 min
  4. Open folder as vault
New to Obsidian? Start here: install and set up Obsidian, step by step 5 steps with screenshots →

1. Which tool fits you

Starting from slides and want a full linked vault? Use vaultcraft. Want notes per PDF inside Obsidian with your own API key? Try Lecture Lens. Want to chat with sources in the browser? NotebookLM. Already have hundreds of notes? An Obsidian search plugin is enough.

Best for slidesvaultcraftLecture LensNotebookLMSmart Connec­tionsCopilotText GeneratorNotion AI
Writes notes from slides
Linked concept notes
Checks its own work
Markdown on your disk
No new subscription
Chat with your notes
PriceFreeAPI costsFree tierPro $30/moPlus $14.99/moAPI costs$20/mo
yes partly no not statedAs listed by each developer, 17 Oct 2026. Tap a dot for detail.

2. Chat plugins need notes first

A chat plugin searches what you have already written. If all you have is twelve lecture PDFs, it has nothing to search, and you are back to writing every note by hand.

vaultcraft works the other way round. It reads the sources, lists every named technique, model and formula, writes a note for each and links them to each other.

3. Real test: three MIT lectures

Real test results: 53 linked notes, 7 minutes, 0 broken links, 22 of 22 code examples ran

3.1 What went in

Three slide PDFs from MIT 6.0002 on MIT OpenCourseWare (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), about optimization, graphs and stochastic thinking. I ran it in Claude Code on 17 October 2026 with default settings.

3.2 What came out

  • 53 notes in about 7 minutes.
  • 46 concept notes, for example Knapsack Problem and Random Walk.
  • 3 lecture notes with 8 exam questions each.
  • 0 broken links, and every concept has a definition and an example.
  • 22 of 22 Python examples ran without errors.

3.3 What it caught

One slide lists nine foods but only eight values. vaultcraft used the eight complete rows and redid the calculation: the greedy method gets 318, the best answer is 353. I would have copied the number from the slide without noticing.

4. How it works

4.1 You type one command

Type /vaultcraft and the folder name. It asks a handful of questions about the vault; answer defaults to skip them all.

4.2 It reads and writes

It reads every source and saves the figures. Then it writes the concept notes, one note per lecture and a page of comparison tables, with links running both ways.

4.3 It checks its own work

A built-in check reads the vault the way Obsidian does. Anything missing goes back to be fixed, and the run only ends when the check passes.

4.4 You revise by hovering

Hovering a link in an AI-generated lecture note shows the concept definition

Each concept note starts with its definition, so pointing at a link in Obsidian shows it straight away. Before an exam I open the start page and work through the links from there.

5. It runs on the AI you already pay for

It runs inside Claude, ChatGPT, Codex or Cursor, so you do not need a new subscription or an account. It reads only the folder you give it and writes only to the vault folder you choose. Nothing is sent anywhere else.

On a Claude or ChatGPT plan it uses your plan. A 12-lecture course takes about half an hour.

6. When another tool is the better choice

6.1 You already have hundreds of notes

Use Smart Connections. It finds related notes on your own machine, and the core version is free.

6.2 You want a chat panel inside Obsidian

Use Copilot for Obsidian. vaultcraft has no panel in Obsidian; it writes the vault from your assistant.

6.3 Your study group lives in Notion

Use Notion AI, so everyone stays in one tool.

6.4 You want it all inside Obsidian, on your own API key

Try Lecture Lens. It converts PDFs and slide photos into notes from a panel in Obsidian.

6.5 You mostly want to ask questions about your readings

Use NotebookLM. It answers from your uploaded sources and makes quizzes and audio summaries, but the notes stay in Google.

7. FAQ

How do I turn lecture slides into notes with AI?

Give an AI assistant your slides and let it write Markdown notes into a folder. vaultcraft does this for PDF, PPTX, Word, Markdown and Jupyter files. Three MIT lectures became 53 linked notes in about 7 minutes.

What is the best AI note taking tool for students?

It depends on the job. For a permanent, linked vault of notes from your slides, vaultcraft. For quick questions about uploaded readings, NotebookLM. For notes you already have, an Obsidian plugin like Smart Connections.

Can ChatGPT make notes from a PDF?

Yes. Upload the PDF and ask for notes, but you copy them out by hand and nothing links them together. With vaultcraft installed, ChatGPT, Claude, Codex or Cursor writes a linked vault instead.

What is the best AI plugin for Obsidian?

For chatting with your vault, Copilot for Obsidian. For finding related notes, Smart Connections. For turning PDFs into notes inside Obsidian, Lecture Lens. vaultcraft is not an Obsidian plugin: it runs in your AI assistant and writes the vault.

NotebookLM vs Obsidian: which should I use?

They do different jobs. NotebookLM answers questions about sources you upload, inside Google. Obsidian keeps a lasting vault of Markdown files on your disk. Many students use both.

How do I use Claude with Obsidian?

Point Claude Code at your vault folder, or add a plugin such as Claudian for a side panel. To build the notes from slides, install vaultcraft in Claude Code and type /vaultcraft. Back up the vault first.

Is there a free alternative to Notion AI?

Yes. Obsidian is free, and so are vaultcraft (MIT), Text Generator and the core of Smart Connections. vaultcraft runs on the AI plan you already have.

Is it safe to upload lecture slides to AI?

Your files go only to the AI provider you run it in (Anthropic, OpenAI or Cursor). Nothing goes to a vaultcraft server, and the notes stay on your disk as Markdown.

Read this far? Try it on your own slides.

an obsidian vault builder · study · work · research

Set up vaultcraft → View on GitHub

Sources

Prices and features as listed on 17 October 2026. I built vaultcraft, so read the comparison with that in mind. Corrections: miki.sapek@gmail.com.