Work with Obsidian vaults (plain Markdown notes) and automate via obsidian-cli.
Obsidian vault = a normal folder on disk.
Vault structure (typical)
*.md (plain text Markdown; edit with any editor).obsidian/ (workspace + plugin settings; usually don’t touch from scripts)*.canvas (JSON)Obsidian desktop tracks vaults here (source of truth):
~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/obsidian.jsonobsidian-cli resolves vaults from that file; vault name is typically the folder name (path suffix).
Fast “what vault is active / where are the notes?”
obsidian-cli print-default --path-only~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/obsidian.json and use the vault entry with "open": true.Notes
~/Documents, work/personal, etc.). Don’t guess; read config.print-default.Pick a default vault (once):
obsidian-cli set-default "<vault-folder-name>"obsidian-cli print-default / obsidian-cli print-default --path-onlySearch
obsidian-cli search "query" (note names)obsidian-cli search-content "query" (inside notes; shows snippets + lines)Create
obsidian-cli create "Folder/New note" --content "..." --openobsidian://…) working (Obsidian installed)..something/...) via URI; Obsidian may refuse.Move/rename (safe refactor)
obsidian-cli move "old/path/note" "new/path/note"[[wikilinks]] and common Markdown links across the vault (this is the main win vs mv).Delete
obsidian-cli delete "path/note"Prefer direct edits when appropriate: open the .md file and change it; Obsidian will pick it up.