/obsidian-cli

name: obsidian-cli
version: "1.3.0"
description: >
  Use this skill whenever the user wants Claude to directly interact with their
  Obsidian vault — reading a note or daily note, writing or appending content,
  searching vault contents, counting or listing notes, managing tasks, moving or
  renaming files, finding orphaned notes or broken links. Without this skill, Claude
  has no way to access vault data or execute vault operations. Treat any request that
  implies "go into my vault and do X" as a trigger — the user is asking Claude to act,
  not to explain. Also trigger for vault automation, CLI scripting, or cron-based
  workflows involving Obsidian, managing sync history, querying Bases, restoring file
  versions via history, managing bookmarks, or running JavaScript against the Obsidian
  API. Skip for pure conceptual questions: how Obsidian's GUI works, navigating settings
  menus, theme or plugin installation via the UI, iCloud/third-party sync conflicts,
  general Dataview query syntax, keyboard shortcuts, or parsing vault files with external
  scripts — anything where the user needs an explanation rather than Claude performing a
  vault operation.
triggers:
  - "obsidian"
  - "vault"
  - "daily note"
  - "obsidian cli"
  - "note"
  - "append to"
  - "prepend to"
  - "search my vault"
  - "create a note"
  - "read note"
  - "move note"
  - "rename note"
  - "delete note"
  - "tasks in obsidian"
  - "open tasks"
  - "backlinks"
  - "orphaned notes"
  - "broken links"
  - "frontmatter"
  - "properties"
  - "sync history"
  - "obsidian bases"
  - "file history"

Obsidian CLI

The official Obsidian CLI (released in v1.12, February 2026) lets you control every aspect of Obsidian from the terminal. It communicates with a running Obsidian desktop instance via IPC.

> Read `references/command-reference.md` when you need specific flags, output formats, or > subcommands for any command group. It covers all 130+ commands with full parameter tables > and has a table of contents at the top.

Prerequisites

| Requirement | Details | |---|---| | Obsidian Desktop | **v1.12.0+** | | CLI enabled | Settings → Command line interface → Toggle ON | | Obsidian running | The desktop app **must be running** for CLI to work (IPC) |

Platform Notes

• **macOS / Linux**: The `obsidian` binary is registered in PATH automatically when you enable CLI in settings.
• **Windows**: Requires an `Obsidian.com` redirector file placed alongside `Obsidian.exe`. **Must run with normal user privileges** — admin terminals produce silent failures.
• If colon subcommands (`property:set`, `daily:append`, etc.) with parameters return exit 127, check that `Obsidian.com` exists alongside `Obsidian.exe`. If missing, you have an outdated installer — download the latest from [obsidian.md/download](https://obsidian.md/download) and reinstall.
• **Git Bash / MSYS2 users**: Bash resolves `obsidian` to `Obsidian.exe` (GUI) instead of `Obsidian.com` (CLI), causing colon+params to fail with exit 127 even when `Obsidian.com` is present. Create a wrapper script — see Troubleshooting.
• **Headless Linux**: Use the `.deb` package (not snap). Run under `xvfb`. Prefix commands with `DISPLAY=:5` (or your xvfb display number). Ensure `PrivateTmp=false` if running as a service.

Syntax

All parameters use **`key=value`** syntax. Quote values containing spaces.

obsidian <command> [subcommand] [key=value ...] [flags]

Multi-Vault

Target a specific vault by making it the **first argument**:

obsidian "My Vault" daily:read
obsidian "Work Notes" search query="meeting"

If omitted, the CLI targets the most recently active vault.

Command Overview

The CLI provides **130+ commands** across these groups:

| Group | Key Commands | Purpose | |---|---|---| | **files** | `read`, `create`, `append`, `prepend`, `move`, `rename`, `delete`, `files`, `folders`, `file`, `random` | Note CRUD and file discovery | | **daily** | `daily`, `daily:read`, `daily:append`, `daily:prepend`, `daily:path` | Daily note operations | | **search** | `search`, `search:context` | Full-text search; `search:context` returns matching lines | | **properties** | `properties`, `property:read`, `property:set`, `property:remove`, `aliases` | Frontmatter/metadata management | | **tags** | `tags`, `tag` | Tag listing, counts, and filtering | | **tasks** | `tasks`, `task` | Task querying, filtering, and toggling | | **links** | `backlinks`, `links`, `unresolved`, `orphans`, `deadends` | Graph and link analysis | | **bookmarks** | `bookmarks`, `bookmark` | List and add bookmarks | | **templates** | `templates`, `template:read`, `template:insert` | Template listing, rendering, insertion | | **plugins** | `plugins`, `plugin`, `plugin:enable`, `plugin:disable`, `plugin:install`, `plugin:uninstall`, `plugins:restrict` | Plugin management | | **sync** | `sync`, `sync:status`, `sync:history`, `sync:read`, `sync:restore`, `sync:deleted` | Obsidian Sync operations | | **themes** | `themes`, `theme`, `theme:set`, `theme:install`, `theme:uninstall` | Theme management | | **snippets** | `snippets`, `snippets:enabled`, `snippet:enable`, `snippet:disable` | CSS snippet management | | **commands** | `commands`, `command`, `hotkeys`, `hotkey` | Execute Obsidian commands by ID; inspect hotkeys | | **bases** | `bases`, `base:query`, `base:views`, `base:create` | Obsidian Bases (v1.12+ database feature) | | **history** | `history`, `history:list`, `history:read`, `history:restore` | File version recovery (File Recovery plugin) | | **workspace** | `workspace`, `tabs`, `tab:open` | Workspace layout and tab management | | **diff** | `diff` | Compare local vs sync file versions | | **dev** | `eval`, `dev:screenshot`, `dev:debug`, `dev:console`, `dev:errors`, `dev:css`, `dev:dom`, `devtools` | Developer/debugging tools | | **vault** | `vault`, `vaults`, `version`, `reload`, `restart` | Vault info and app control | | **other** | `outline`, `wordcount`, `recent