Obsidian Vault

obsidian-cli <command> "<note name or path>" [flags] 2>/dev/null

• Note names are fuzzy-matched (like wikilinks — no path or .md extension needed)
• For notes in subfolders, use the relative path from vault root: "10_SOURCES/My Note"
• Quote names with spaces: "Job Applications Log"
• The vault is already set to Brain — omit -v flag

Available Commands (v0.2.2)

There are exactly 12 commands. Do NOT use any other command names.

Core Operations

Read / Print a Note

# Print note contents (fuzzy name match)
obsidian-cli print "Job Applications Log" 2>/dev/null

# Print note with linked mentions included
obsidian-cli print "PPO" -m 2>/dev/null

# Print note from a specific folder path
obsidian-cli print "10_SOURCES/Job Applications Log" 2>/dev/null

Create a Note

# Create a new note with content
obsidian-cli create "00_INBOX/Quick Thought" -c "# Quick Thought\n\nContent here" 2>/dev/null

# Create in a specific folder
obsidian-cli create "10_SOURCES/New Paper" -c "# New Paper\n\nNotes..." 2>/dev/null

# Create and open in Obsidian
obsidian-cli create "30_PROJECTS/New Project" -c "# Project" --open 2>/dev/null

# Overwrite an existing note
obsidian-cli create "00_INBOX/Existing Note" -c "Replaced content" -o 2>/dev/null

Append to a Note

# Append content to an existing note (uses create with -a flag)
obsidian-cli create "Research Notes" -c "\n## New Section\nContent here" -a 2>/dev/null

# Append a task to the daily note — first get daily note, then append
# (No direct daily-append command exists)

Search

# Fuzzy search by name and open in Obsidian
obsidian-cli search "transformer" 2>/dev/null

# Search note CONTENT for a term (requires Obsidian app running)
obsidian-cli search-content "attention mechanism" 2>/dev/null

# Open in editor instead of Obsidian
obsidian-cli search-content "RLHF" -e 2>/dev/null

Note: search-content requires Obsidian app to be running. If it fails, fall back to using the Read tool directly on vault files, or use ast-grep/grep on the vault path.

Move / Rename

# Move a note (takes 2 positional args: source, destination)
obsidian-cli move "Quick Thought" "10_SOURCES/Quick Thought" 2>/dev/null

# Rename a note (move to same folder with new name)
obsidian-cli move "Old Name" "New Name" 2>/dev/null

# Move and open in Obsidian
obsidian-cli move "Draft" "10_SOURCES/Final" -o 2>/dev/null

Delete

# Delete a note (moves to .trash/)
obsidian-cli delete "Outdated Note" 2>/dev/null

# Delete note in a subfolder
obsidian-cli delete "00_INBOX/Temp Note" 2>/dev/null

Open in Obsidian

# Open note in Obsidian app
obsidian-cli open "Job Applications Log" 2>/dev/null

Frontmatter (Properties)

# Print all frontmatter for a note
obsidian-cli frontmatter "PPO Paper" --print 2>/dev/null

# Edit a frontmatter key
obsidian-cli frontmatter "PPO Paper" --edit --key "status" --value "done" 2>/dev/null

# Delete a frontmatter key
obsidian-cli frontmatter "PPO Paper" --delete --key "draft" 2>/dev/null

Daily Notes

# Create or open today's daily note in Obsidian
obsidian-cli daily 2>/dev/null

Note: The CLI only has one daily command — it creates/opens the daily note. There is no daily:read, daily:append, or daily:path command. To read/append to the daily note, find its path first (it follows the vault's daily note template pattern in 80_JOURNALS/) and use print or create -a with the full path.

Vault Info

# Print default vault name and path
obsidian-cli print-default 2>/dev/null

# Set default vault
obsidian-cli set-default "Brain" 2>/dev/null

Vault Structure

Limitations (v0.2.2)

The CLI is lightweight. These features are NOT available:

• No backlinks, links, orphans, deadends, unresolved commands
• No tags, tasks commands
• No templates, template:read, template:insert commands
• No history, diff, history:restore commands
• No files, folders, wordcount, recents commands
• No daily:read, daily:append, daily:prepend commands
• No --copy flag
• No key=value parameter syntax — use positional args and flags only

Workarounds:

• To read daily note: find the file in 80_JOURNALS/ and use print
• To append to daily: find the file and use create "<path>" -c "content" -a
• To list files/folders: use Bash ls on the vault path
• To search content when Obsidian is closed: use the Read tool directly on vault files
• For backlinks, tags, tasks: use the Obsidian app directly or search vault files with grep/Read

Safety Rules

1. Confirm before destructive ops. Before delete, move, or overwrite (-o) — state the action and ask the user to confirm.
2. Read before edit. Always print a note before modifying it with append to understand current state.
3. No binary files. Only operate on .md files through the CLI.
4. Check existence before create. Use print to check if a note exists before creating (it will error if not found).
5. Respect skill boundaries. Route to research-papers, zettelkasten, deep-work, or idea-queue when appropriate.

Fallback: Direct File Access

When obsidian-cli commands fail (Obsidian not running, CLI limitations), fall back to direct file operations on the vault path:

/Users/jnk789/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/Brain/

• Use the Read tool to read vault files directly
• Use the Edit tool for targeted edits to vault files (better for long content than CLI append)
• Use Bash ls to list vault folders and files

The CLI is preferred for fuzzy name matching and link-aware moves, but direct file access is a reliable fallback.

Quick Reference

Integration with Other Skills