Requirements
Before you install Hyo, here’s what you need. Don’t worry if you don’t have all of it yet — Hyo walks you through the fiddly parts.
Obsidian, on desktop
Section titled “Obsidian, on desktop”Hyo is an Obsidian plugin, so you need Obsidian installed. It’s a free download.
It has to be the desktop app — Mac or Windows. Hyo doesn’t run on Obsidian mobile, because it needs to run Claude Code on your computer.
If you’ve never used Obsidian, that’s fine. When you first open it, it asks you to pick a folder to be your “vault” — that’s just the folder your notes live in. Any folder works. We’ll come back to why that folder matters when you set up your workspace.
A paid Claude account
Section titled “A paid Claude account”Hyo runs on your Claude login, so you need a paid plan: Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise. You can sign up at claude.ai.
This is the only thing you pay for. There’s no separate Hyo subscription and no per-message API cost — Hyo uses the Claude plan you’re already on.
The Claude Code CLI
Section titled “The Claude Code CLI”This is the tool Hyo runs behind the scenes. “CLI” just means it’s a program that normally runs from the command line — but you won’t be using it that way, Hyo does that for you.
You don’t need to install this ahead of time. When you first open Hyo, it checks whether Claude Code is already on your machine. If it isn’t, it shows you a setup screen with exactly what to do. There’s even a prompt you can paste into Claude Desktop to have Claude install it for you, step by step.
We cover that fully in Install Claude Code.
Ready?
Section titled “Ready?”Got Obsidian and a paid Claude account? Head to Install Hyo.