obsidian

name	obsidian
description	Work with Obsidian vaults (plain Markdown notes on disk) and automate via obsidian-cli. Use when reading, creating, searching, or refactoring notes in an Obsidian vault.
version	2.0.0
kind	guidance
triggers	["work with obsidian","notes in obsidian"]
intent	notes
guardrails	["Do not edit `.obsidian/` workspace or plugin settings from scripts.","Prefer `obsidian-cli move` over `mv` — it rewrites wikilinks across the vault."]
tools	["bash","obsidian-cli"]
created_at	2026-05-30T00:00:00.000Z
updated_at	2026-07-29T00:00:00.000Z

Obsidian

An Obsidian vault is a normal folder on disk. Notes are plain Markdown and can be edited with any editor — reach for direct file edits when that is simpler, and Obsidian will pick the change up.

obsidian-cli is not currently installed on this machine; the command recipes below assume it is present. Enable it via Settings → General → Command line interface.

Vault layout

• *.md — notes, plain Markdown
• .obsidian/ — workspace and plugin settings; leave alone
• *.canvas — canvases, JSON
• attachments — whatever folder is configured in Obsidian settings

Finding the active vault

Obsidian tracks vaults in a config file, which is the source of truth:

• Linux/WSL2 — ~/.config/obsidian/obsidian.json
• macOS — ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/obsidian.json

The vault name is normally the folder name. To resolve it quickly, use obsidian-cli print-default --path-only if a default is set; otherwise read the config file and take the entry with "open": true.

Set the default once with obsidian-cli set-default "<vault-folder-name>" — this is obsidian-cli's own mechanism, so the skill keeps no separate config.

Commands

Search:

obsidian-cli search "query"          # note names
obsidian-cli search-content "query"  # inside notes, with snippets and line numbers

Create, move, delete:

obsidian-cli create "Folder/New note" --content "..." --open
obsidian-cli move "old/path/note" "new/path/note"
obsidian-cli delete "path/note"

move updates [[wikilinks]] and Markdown links across the vault — that is the main reason to prefer it over mv.

Constraints

• create and move need the Obsidian URI handler, which requires the desktop app running. On Linux/WSL2 without a display, edit files directly or use .