obsidian

name

obsidian

description

Use when the user mentions Obsidian, vault, daily notes, wikilinks, frontmatter, backlinks, graph view, or obsidian-cli. Activates for searching, creating, editing, moving notes in an Obsidian vault, managing YAML frontmatter, setting up Zettelkasten vault structure, or syncing vaults via Obsidian Headless (ob CLI). Also trigger on Korean phrases like "노트 만들어줘", "vault 동기화", or "frontmatter 수정해줘". Do NOT trigger for generic Markdown editing (README, docs) or other note apps (Notion, Bear). Do NOT activate when the user wants to use vault notes as conversational context (e.g., "내 노트 참고해서 답해줘", "check my notes about X", "이전에 정리한 거 있어?") — that belongs to the obsidian-brain skill.

Obsidian Vault Skill

Contents

• Tool Selection Guide
• Find the Vault
• Working with Notes
• Multi-Vault Usage
• Common Patterns
• When NOT to Use
• Error Handling
• Obsidian Headless
• CLI Reference

Obsidian vault = a normal folder of Markdown files on disk. Use obsidian-cli only when its features add real value (search, link-aware move/rename, frontmatter ops, opening in Obsidian).

Tool Selection Guide

Task	Best tool
Read note content	Read tool
Edit note content	Edit tool
Create new note	Write tool
Create note + open in Obsidian	obsidian-cli create --open
Search note names	obsidian-cli search "query"
Search inside notes	obsidian-cli search-content "query"
Broad content search / regex	Grep tool on vault path
Find notes by name pattern	Glob tool on vault path
Move/rename note (updates wikilinks)	obsidian-cli move
View/edit frontmatter	obsidian-cli frontmatter
Open daily note	obsidian-cli daily
List vault contents	obsidian-cli list
Delete note	obsidian-cli delete
Sync vault (no desktop)	ob sync

Find the Vault

Never hardcode paths. Resolve the vault path first:

obsidian-cli print-default --path-only   # if default vault is set
cat ~/Library/Application\ Support/obsidian/obsidian.json  # otherwise

The config JSON has a vaults object; use the entry with "open": true. If multiple vaults exist, ask the user which to use, then: obsidian-cli set-default "<vault-folder-name>"

Working with Notes

Read: Use Read tool on the .md file directly. For backlink context: obsidian-cli print "Note" --mentions

Create: Use Write tool for simple creation. To also open in Obsidian: obsidian-cli create "Folder/Note" --content "..." --open. To append: add --append.

Edit: Use Edit tool — precise diffs, preserves formatting. Prefer over obsidian-cli for content changes.

Search by name: obsidian-cli search "query" — fuzzy match across vault. Search content: obsidian-cli search-content "query" — snippets + line numbers. Regex search: Use Grep on vault path (faster, supports regex). Filename pattern: Use Glob on vault path (e.g., **/daily/**/*.md).

Move/rename: Always use obsidian-cli move "Old/note" "New/note" — updates [[wikilinks]] across vault. Plain mv cannot do this.

Frontmatter:

obsidian-cli frontmatter "Note" --print
obsidian-cli frontmatter "Note" --edit --key "status" --value "done"
obsidian-cli frontmatter "Note" --delete --key "draft"

For bulk frontmatter ops across many notes, use Read + Edit directly — more efficient.

Daily note: obsidian-cli daily — creates if needed, opens in Obsidian.

List vault: obsidian-cli list or obsidian-cli list "Projects" for a subfolder.

Delete: obsidian-cli delete "Folder/note-to-delete"

Multi-Vault Usage

All obsidian-cli commands accept --vault <name>:

obsidian-cli search "query" --vault "Work"
obsidian-cli create "Note" --content "..." --vault "Personal"

Common Patterns

Batch note updates: Use Glob to find files, then Read + Edit per file — faster than calling obsidian-cli repeatedly.

Linked notes: Use Write with [[wikilinks]] in content; Obsidian resolves them on open.

Template-based creation: Read the template, substitute placeholders, Write the new note.

When NOT to Use

• Generic Markdown editing (README.md, CHANGELOG.md, docs/) — use Read/Edit tools directly
• Other note-taking apps (Notion, Bear, Apple Notes) — this skill is Obsidian-specific
• Code documentation or inline comments

Error Handling

If obsidian-cli is not installed:

• Fall back to direct file operations: use Glob to find notes, Read/Edit/Write to modify them
• Wikilink-aware move/rename won't work without obsidian-cli — warn the user

OS-specific Obsidian config paths:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/obsidian.json
• Linux: ~/.config/obsidian/obsidian.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%/obsidian/obsidian.json

Obsidian Headless

For headless sync (CI/servers), see the Headless section in references/commands.md.

CLI Reference

For detailed flag options, see references/commands.md.

References Loading Guide

Situation	Load
CLI command options, headless usage	references/commands.md