pi-obsidian

name	pi-obsidian
description	Use Obsidian CLI and Obsidian-flavored Markdown for Alon's notes vault. Trigger when interacting with Obsidian, the notes vault, Daily notes, wikilinks, tags, backlinks, tasks, properties, Bases, or when asked to search/read/create/open/manage notes from pi.

Pi Obsidian

Use this skill for Obsidian vault work from pi.

Environment

• Main vault: /home/alon/notes
• CLI binary: /home/alon/.local/bin/obsidian (obsidian on PATH)
• Do not use /usr/bin/obs; that is OBS Studio.
• Obsidian CLI requires Obsidian desktop running. Check with:

  pgrep -af 'obsidian|Obsidian' || true
  

• If CLI fails because Obsidian is closed, use file tools for read/edit tasks and say CLI needs app running for index/UI operations.

When to use CLI vs file tools

Prefer obsidian CLI for vault-indexed or app-aware operations:

• search, backlinks, outgoing links, unresolved links
• tags, aliases, properties, tasks
• daily note path/read/append/prepend
• open note/tab/workspace actions
• plugin/theme/dev/debug operations

Prefer read/edit/write for exact file inspection and precise content edits after target path is known.

Basic commands

obsidian help
obsidian help <command>
obsidian version
obsidian vault
obsidian vaults verbose
obsidian files folder=Daily ext=md total

File targeting

• file="Note Name" resolves like a wikilink; no path/extension needed.
• path="folder/note.md" is exact from vault root. Prefer path when known.
• Commands default to active file when target omitted; avoid omission unless user asked for active note.

Examples:

obsidian read path="Daily/2026-05-10.md"
obsidian open path="Projects/Keyboard Firmware Management.md" newtab
obsidian file path="Inbox.md"

Search and graph queries

obsidian search query="kubernetes" path="Daily" limit=10
obsidian search:context query="kubernetes" path="Projects" limit=10
obsidian backlinks path="Projects/Foo.md" counts
obsidian links path="Projects/Foo.md" total
obsidian unresolved counts verbose
obsidian orphans total
obsidian deadends total

Use format=json|tsv|csv when available and structured output helps.

Daily notes

obsidian daily:path
obsidian daily:read
obsidian daily:append content="- [ ] Task"
obsidian daily:prepend content="## Section\nText"

For journal entries, follow /home/alon/notes/AGENTS.md conventions: frontmatter, tags, wikilinks, and confidentiality for sage content.

Metadata and tasks

obsidian tags counts sort=count
obsidian properties counts sort=count
obsidian aliases verbose
obsidian tasks todo verbose
obsidian tasks daily todo
obsidian task ref="Inbox.md:1" done
obsidian property:read name="tags" path="Note.md"
obsidian property:set name="status" value="done" type=text path="Note.md"

Creating or editing notes

Non-destructive examples:

obsidian create path="Projects/New Note.md" content="# New Note" open
obsidian append path="Inbox.md" content="- [ ] New item"
obsidian prepend path="Inbox.md" content="## Triage"

For synced notes, avoid temp files inside vault. Be mindful Syncthing propagates changes.

Safety rules

Ask before destructive or high-impact commands unless user explicitly requested them:

• delete, move, rename
• history:restore, sync:restore
• plugin:disable, plugin:uninstall, plugin:install
• theme:set, theme:install, theme:uninstall
• sync off, restart, reload
• developer commands: eval, dev:cdp, dev:debug, dev:mobile

For plugin/theme dev, user intent can imply plugin:reload, dev:errors, dev:console, dev:screenshot, dev:dom are OK.

Obsidian Markdown conventions

Use Obsidian-flavored Markdown:

• Wikilinks: [[Note]], [[Note#Heading]], [[Note|Alias]]
• Embeds: ![[Note]], ![[image.png|300]]
• Tags: #tag, #nested/tag
• Callouts:

  > [!note]
  > Content
  

• Frontmatter:

  ---
  aliases: []
  tags: [personal]
  ---
  

Prefer existing vault conventions in AGENTS.md over generic Obsidian style.