Obsidian cli

Obsidian CLI

Use this skill for safe operations on a local Obsidian vault. The vault is a filesystem directory containing .obsidian/.

Operating Model

1. Resolve the vault path from the user, environment, or calling skill config.
2. Verify the path exists and contains .obsidian/.
3. Prefer rg for search.
4. Use an available obsidian command or Obsidian URI only when it exists and the command shape is known.
5. Fall back to direct file operations when CLI helpers are unavailable.
6. Never edit outside the resolved vault.

Tool Detection

command -v obsidian >/dev/null && echo "OBSIDIAN_COMMAND=true" || echo "OBSIDIAN_COMMAND=false"
command -v rg >/dev/null && echo "RG=true" || echo "RG=false"

Search

Preferred:

rg -n --glob '*.md' "query|alias|topic" "$VAULT"

Fallback:

find "$VAULT" -name '*.md' -not -path '*/.trash/*'

If an obsidian command supports search in the environment, it may be used, but do not assume a universal syntax without testing it first.

Create Notes

Create parent directories as needed and write Markdown files directly. Preserve existing files unless the user asked to update them.

mkdir -p "$VAULT/Concepts/software-engineering"

Prefer readable kebab-case filenames:

cache-key-mismatch.md

Update Properties

When a deterministic helper exists, use it. Otherwise edit YAML carefully:

• preserve unrelated fields
• preserve user content
• update updated:
• keep related: as a flat list of existing note slugs

Backlinks

Before adding a backlink, validate the target file exists. When adding a forward link, also add a reverse link if the related note has a clear structure and can be edited safely.

If the reverse edit is risky, skip it and report the reason.

Logs

Append capture operations to capture-log.md or wiki-log.md in the vault root. Use wikilinks for note references.