obsidian-cli

name	obsidian-cli
description	Interact with Obsidian vaults using the Obsidian CLI to search, read, write, and organize notes. Use this skill when you need to perform programmatic operations on any Obsidian vault, such as searching for context, managing notes, or updating metadata via the CLI.

Obsidian CLI

This skill provides instructions for using the Obsidian CLI to interact with Obsidian vaults. The CLI requires the Obsidian app to be running.

Important: obsidian in PATH typically launches the GUI app. Use the CLI binary directly:

obsidian-cli

If the path is not found (e.g., after a NixOS rebuild), you can find the current path with:

readlink -f ~/.nix-profile/bin/obsidian | xargs dirname | xargs -I{} ls {}/obsidian-cli

If Obsidian is not running, the CLI will print an error — you may need to launch the app first.

Commands Reference

Search & Read

# Search the vault
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> search query="query text"
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> search:context query="query text" format=json

# Read a note by name (resolves like wikilinks, no path needed)
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> read file=<filename>

# Read a note by exact path
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> read path="Folder/File.md"

# Read a specific property from a note
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> property:read name=<property-name> file=<filename>

# List all tags
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> tags counts format=json

# Get backlinks to a note
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> backlinks file=<filename> format=json

Create & Write

# Create a note with content (use \n for newlines)
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> create path="Folder/File.md" content="Content here..."

# Append to an existing note
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> append file=<filename> content="\nNew content"

# Prepend after frontmatter
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> prepend file=<filename> content="Prepended content"

# Set a property (updates frontmatter)
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> property:set name=<property-name> value="value" file=<filename>

Tasks

# List incomplete tasks from a note
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> tasks file=<filename> todo

# Mark a task as done
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> task file=<filename> line=<line-number> done

Other Useful Commands

# List all files in a folder
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> files folder="Folder/Subfolder"

# Get headings/outline of a note
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> outline file=<filename> format=json

# Check unresolved links (broken references)
obsidian-cli vault=<vault-name> unresolved

Tips

• Use format=json when piping output to other commands or when you need structured data.
• The file= parameter resolves like wikilinks — you can reference a note without the path or extension.
• When creating a note, use path= to ensure it is placed in the correct directory.
• Link notes with wikilinks ([[Note Name]]) to create connections that can be discovered via backlinks.